Don’t try to cut down Leinster’s tall poppy, hail the home-grown excellence –

The characteristics that define sporting dynasties are excellence, consistency, longevity and winning multiple trophies. To wrangle an entire business into a cohesive off-field and on-field collective that is obsessed with winning is like herding cats. To do it for one trophy-winning season is a great achievement. To repeat that feat year after year to create a sporting dynasty is truly extraordinary.

From the New York Yankees baseball team that won the World Series 16 times from 1936 to 1962, to the St George Dragons Rugby League team that won the Sydney Premiership unbroken from 1956 to 1966, to Manchester United’s two decades of dominance under Alex Ferguson and the much feted 1990s Chicago Bulls, driven by Michael Jordan and the quiet genius of their coach Phil Jackson, all of these winning dynasties benefited from the longevity of the clubs’ top-quality players and staff.

From exceptional chief executives who run the back of the house, to outstanding coaches who attract and keep exceptional players, all staff combine to create a consistent high performance that can last for generations of successive players’ careers.

Leinster continue to tick all these boxes. Even their harshest critics have to admit that the consistency of their performances across many seasons has been extraordinary.

After a series of bitter defeats in Champions Cup finals and URC playoffs, added to the retirement of Johnny Sexton, one of rugby’s greatest ever on-field generals, the naysayers predicted that this season Leinster’s collective ability to unleash their inner dog at the highest level of European club rugby would dry up like an Australian outback paddock in the depths of El Niño.

The departure of Stuart Lancaster’s exceptional coaching knowledge to Racing 92 in Paris merely strengthened the argument.

Despite all of these real obstacles, Irish rugby’s quiet man, Leo Cullen, once again has his team competing at the highest of standards. While it must be said the side are still not firing on all cylinders and there remains considerable room for their on field-performance to improve, to have suffered only one defeat in the URC despite suppling so many players to Ireland’s World Cup campaign and then to have defeated La Rochelle, their most bitter rival, amounts to a phenomenal performance.

This consistently high performance is being achieved with the vast majority of their playing staff being born and bred in their home province. This is unmatched across the globe. Whenever I talk to leading Australian or New Zealand administrators, it is Leinster’s consistency and academy that dominates their questions.

Despite winning the URC four times in the last six years and making the final of the Champions Cup three out of the last five, a record that any other club on the planet would pay millions for, the envious are more than happy to try to cut Leinster’s tall poppy down.

At home in Ireland, where they should be feted and celebrated for their…