Is time nearly up for Matt O’Connor?

It was never going to be easy replacing Joe Schmidt but in his first season as Leinster head coach Matt O’Connor enjoyed a successful campaign. He guided Leinster to a Pro12 championship and a Heineken Cup quarter-final where they lost to eventual champions Toulon. Fast forward a year and Leinster are on the brink of surrendering their Pro12 crown and face a Toulon side in the semi-final of the Champions Cup with very few thinking they can cause an upset at the Stade Velodrome. But where has it gone wrong for Matt O’Connor and Leinster.

In his second season as Leinster’s coach O’Connor has had to deal with a lot of injuries to important players. Sean O’Brien has missed most of the season, while Cian Healy was also out for a few months and new signings Kane Douglas and Ben Te’o brought into replace Leo Cullen and Brian O’Driscoll have spent most of the season in the treatment room. However that does excuse Leinster’s poor defence and their lack of tries this season. Leinster seem like a different side to the one under Joe Schmidt that was both impressive in defence and attack. In the Champions Cup quarter-final against Bath, Leinster were lucky to come away with a win with the boot of Ian Madigan securing them the win. In attack they never looked liked threatening the Bath defence, while in defence they were opened up by Bath on numerous occasions with Bath having 7 line breaks throughout the game with Leinster only having 2.

With so much success in recent years it has been tough for Leinster supporters to see their side only win 9 out of 19 games in the Pro12 and make it to the semi-final of the Champions Cup despite below par performances in the pool stages and the quarter-final. If Leinster are to suffer defeat on Sunday it looks likely to be their first trophyless season since the 2009/10 season and with Matt O’Connor failing to get the best out of his players this season, there will be calls from some Leinster supporters to cut short the final year of his three-year contract and bring in a new head coach for the start of next season. If Leinster decide to keep O’Connor as their head coach they will hope the return of Johnny Sexton will change the clubs fortunes and they can return to being a dominant side in both the league and Europe.