‘It’s Fantastic To Be Back’ – Cullen

‘It’s good to be back, great seeing some of the faces coming in today. The guys are out there (fitness) testing away, which is great to see and they seem to have turned up in very good condition to the naked eye, so we’ll see what the numbers tell us.

Speaking about the resumption of training he continued, “Everyone has had their share of challenges in recent months but we seem to be getting that little bit closer. Full credit to everyone in the IRFU and here working behind the scenes putting in a huge amount of work to get us to this point.

22 June 2020; Andrew Porter during a Leinster rugby gym session at UCD in Dublin. Photo by Marcus Ó Buachalla for Leinster Rugby via Sportsfile

Asked about fitness levels following months spent at home during lock-down Cullen had a wry smile for the tough day his players faced, “Having gone through so many fitness test myself over the years, I have an understanding what that’s the like. As many times as you do them, particularly the running tests, you still have the same nerves and butterflies, so it’s amusing watching the guys out there going through the pain of it all. But from what we can see they’ve come back in good shape.”

You can watch the full interview with Leo Cullen below.

"It's fantastic to be back." 🙌

Leo Cullen on our return to small group training today in UCD. 👇#ReturnToRugby pic.twitter.com/yT5dAT3YQv

— Leinster Rugby (@leinsterrugby) June 22, 2020