Leo Cullen reaches under a pile of papers on his desk and fishes out a match programme. A short-lived guessing game ensues before he reveals it to be from the recent All-Ireland football final.Mayo’s redemption. Losing 11 finals since their last triumph, two of which went to replays; 75 years of hurt, of shattered dreams, of disparate groups of players cursed to toil in vain. The ribbons of victory belonged to others, never the green and red, until this year.Leinster have lost five Champions Cup finals since their last triumph in 2018, including the most recent tournament iteration, when Bordeaux-Bègles coursed the Irish province the length and breadth of the San Mamés stadium in northern Spain back in May.The Saracens defeat aside, Leinster’s woes in European showpieces have been laced with an unpalatable aftertaste, tantalised and tortured by minuscule margins, leaving nothing but a kitbag full of regrets. Bilbao, though, was a blowout. No ‘what-if-ery,’ as Leinster’s performance dipped below the standards that the players and coaching group tolerate.Cullen turns the programme over in his hands. “It was an amazing day,” he says. “I was at the game. I drove up from Wexford that morning and was listening to the radio. No one was tipping Mayo. You have to keep putting yourself in that situation.” Sotto voce he adds: “I hope that Leinster don’t wait for 75 years,” before he smiles.“It is about your own mindset and how you want to frame it. Of course there’s going to be people who will be naysayers, begrudgers, and who write you off all the time. Everyone that was on those panels, the experts, nobody was tipping Mayo to win. But they did.”The message is that you can’t let others define who you are or for what you stand.“We played seven knock-out games [last season], which are essentially finals, because lose and that competition is over. We won six. The other one, we were poor on the day; how we managed the occasion, conditions on the day, there are things that we have reflected on and reviewed at length, and yeah, we may do things slightly differently if we were to get to that situation again. But that’s a long way away.Leinster Senior Cup final, Old Belvedere v Blackrock College, October 22nd, 1999. Blackrock’s No 8 Leo Cullen makes a break from the scrum. Photograph: Andrew Paton/Inpho “I try not to dwell on defeats for too long. It’s easier said than done, obviously. But it depends on what the group needs as well, how we want to shape things and how we want to move forward, because at some point you must move forward. The context of a setback is important. It’s how you respond which is important.”It’s 31 years since Cullen played for the Leinster Schools team. Man, and boy. Player, captain, coach and head coach. A lifetime of commitment – punctuated by a brief, two-year playing hiatus at the Leicester Tigers – to the province he loves, his word, and from whom he will step away at the end of the season.[ ‘One small mistake and you’re on your back’: Leinster’s Alex Usanov on how judo shaped rugby careerOpens in new window ]He’s stepping away from Leinster, not rugby. At 48, there’s plenty of miles left on the clock. “I think I will be of some use to someone in the future. I am still quite young. I’m committed to what I’m doing [with Leinster this season]. That’s all I can say to you. There will be things that will come up. I don’t need a break. If I am off for two days, I am refreshed.”Conversation snaps back to the present. “[My] number one [priority now for the season ahead] is getting the players to figure out how good they can be. The senior players can influence everybody else in the group, [but] they can all lead in some way, and take care of Leinster. They must properly cherish what they do here.“There’s lots of people that would love to be in their shoes, and that’s a responsibility. It shouldn’t be a heavy responsibility; it should be a responsibility that they all relish. I’ve loved the responsibility.”He’s reluctant to get into a discussion about legacy. Others will judge him. Instead, he wants the playing group to understand that they’re in direct control of shaping the future. Resilience, character, courage, belief are required to supplement talent. And a dollop of luck.As Mayo proved it’s not how often you’re knocked down, it’s having the spirit and determination to get up and go again, especially year-on-year when standing on the threshold of silverware.Sitting in his office in UCD, there’s a window that overlooks the gym. Garry Ringrose is working on explosive lateral movement with physiotherapist Orla Armstrong.Leo Cullen arrives back at Dublin Airport with the Leinster team and the Heineken Cup in 2009. Photograph: Cathal Noonan/Inpho Behind Cullen pinned to a cork noticeboard amid the usual debris of reminders and notes are five funeral pamphlets. He describes it as his “wall of death” in a gallows humour way. The identity of the five men reveals a multitude. Arthur Tanner. Paul McNaughton. Niall Brophy. Steve Jameson. Ken Ging. Good Leinster men. Good men.Over the years they would have contributed little bits to the person and coach that Cullen is today, either overtly or by osmosis. It’ll be 12 years when his tenure is up at the end of the season since he took on the head coach’s role, initially on a caretaker basis, having previously been an assistant coach and before that he was a player and a captain during the province’s halcyon days in Europe.He contends that time has flown by because it does when you cherish the job. It’s been fun. Oodles of silverware. Great days, and others where he had to escape the pall of disappointment, turning a shoulder towards the mountaintop to climb once again. Ultimately base camp looks the same at the start of every season irrespective of what’s gone before.“If you get very hung up on the outcome, then you are focusing on the wrong thing,” he argues. “The focus on performance is what we try to chase down. We try to put ourselves in the best possible position at the end of every season.“How did people describe last season? It feels like people were very unhappy from the outside. We had a great time in here. A great bunch of people put everything into the season,” he says before adding that Croke Park was a memorable high point. Not a vindication, not a panacea for the disappointment of the Champions Cup final, but a stand-alone achievement worthy of celebration.Criticism comes with the territory. He makes the point of not being able to go outside your door back in the bad old days, when Leinster were perennial underachievers, European glory a pipe dream. He isn’t short of advice, even the unsolicited kind.He deadpans: “It’s important to listen to advice. You don’t necessarily have to action it, but it’s important to listen to it. And you’d be surprised where some good ideas might come from. So be open-minded.“There’s a lot of real, genuine Leinster fans, and we’ve had amazing support over the years; lots of positivity there. People don’t come up to me and tell me all the things I am doing wrong very often. The trolls, we don’t listen to the trolls.”Leinster head coach Leo Cullen and James Lowe celebrate winning the URC final against the Vodacom Bulls in 2026. Photograph: Dan Sheridan/Inpho Cullen measures his journey in four-year World Cup cycles, three of them to date, the end of the season the right time to step off the carousel. There was no Damascene moment, no blinding light or furtive whispering that it was time to move on. He came to that conclusion without a consultative process.“Everyone likes to be very specific. There was an order [in telling people] in my head, yes. It’s tricky. Obviously, everyone was scattered around. I was trying to let people know.” He told his assistant coaches collectively, principally, but “I didn’t want to distract from what was going on at that moment in time. We were trying to win the URC. That Friday in Croke Park was a great day. “We were back in Bective that night and I started telling people at that stage, players, a few of the coaches already knew and I started to do the rounds and pick people off [to tell]. Some people had forgotten by the time they woke up the following morning,” he laughs.“It’s just making a decision,” he admits “I think my family and friends would be happy for me. The big thing is it’s just trying to give clarity to people so the club has enough time [to find a replacement]. I think that’s important. There is no easy way to do these transitions.“In a perfect world, you finish the season and then you go, ‘I’m out of here’. Someone else is ready to go. Unfortunately, that’s not the way the world works. I just think this is as good as you can get it.“I’ll do everything I can to set it up well for the next person. It’s [me leaving at the end of the season] good for the group. [They should be] excited about a new voice. That’s important. If I was a player, selfishly, I would be, okay, well, just make sure we get someone really good now.“I’m realistic enough to understand that. Some people will be like, ‘thank God your man is going to be gone’. That’s the way it works. Change can be good. The easiest thing is to get rid of the coach. It doesn’t necessarily solve all the problems.“There are strong structures in place here. There is a huge onus on the playing group to lead the way ultimately in terms of their day-to-day behaviours and habits. How they represent Leinster. They understand and have a strong view of what that represents.”Leinster head coach Leo Cullen. Photograph: Nick Elliott/Inpho He emphasises it is the players that respect and protect the culture at Leinster, that it is through them and their performances that they inspire. They ensure academy players are accountable to standards, what good looks like, and in not getting sidetracked by what potentially is bad. It’s an education process that’s in play all the time.[ Felipe Contepomi should be next Leinster head coach, says Ian MadiganOpens in new window ]The academy is near and dear to his heart. Every year with the influx of new talent, he’s got to find space. Not on top of the existing group but with a requirement to cut players. That doesn’t get easier with age. Few things do. Somewhat surprisingly, he argues that age doesn’t help to lock down all the answers.“I feel I know less now than I did 12 years ago, which I think is generally quite common. There are lots of things that I realise that I don’t know now. As in everyday, there will be something that will surprise you. This is the point I am making. It’s a good thing as you try to understand the humans that we work with.”Cullen sees a primary role as chivvying players to be the best version of themselves. “It’s trying to push them to understand how good they can be, to push them to a point that is uncomfortable, but for them to understand, they need to go to that place if they want to get to where they want to go. Sometimes they want to do that, but they don’t understand what it takes.“That is the big piece of where I see my role here, telling them I see you with the potential to do that, but we need a shift in the technical, tactical, physical, and mental side of the game to get to where we all believe that player can go in a team context.”He isn’t being consulted on his successor, and admits “the less I know, the better, probably”. The priority and sole focus is on trying to ensure Leinster continue to win trophies, whether that’s a long-coveted and awaited fifth Champions Cup or a third URC title in succession.Cullen has two non-Irish qualified contracts in his back pocket but is non-committal about whether he’ll use them. They’re there if the “right player” is available. He becomes more animated as he teases out the season ahead, the sequence of games, the travel, the challenges, the new faces.He points to a whistle on the desk stating that if it were a medal instead, he wouldn’t be fixating on it. Accomplishments age overnight. He’s not maudlin or reflective throughout the conversation and only when pressed about he might feel next June does he briefly emote. “I’ve loved my time here”.“The relationships are the biggest thing I would take from it [my time in Leinster]. You are pushing each other all the time, and you are sharing great experiences, making amazing memories. They’re the things I’ll remember.” His standing is assured. First among equals in achievement terms. No matter how this season pans out. Onward and upward. [ Tackling the elephant in the room: Can Sam Prendergast build a robust case for his defence?Opens in new window ]