It was a memorable Heineken Champions Cup final last Saturday evening in the Aviva stadium, where Leinster's hopes were dashed once again at the hands of Ronan O'Gara’s La Rochelle.
With the build-up to the game and the conversation surrounding Leinster’s dominance, budget and squad depth, there was always going to be an increased pressure on them to deliver.
They were desperate to get another star on their jersey, it’s been too long for this group of highly successful international stars, however the wait goes on as La Rochelle wrote their own piece of history by becoming back-to-back European champions.
The talk will now turn to how detrimental this Leinster loss is for Irish hopes in the World Cup.
It would have been great for Irish rugby to have the champions of Europe dominating their squad selection, as opposed to the runners-up.
In reality, this loss isn’t going to change many individual selections within the international set-up.
Will that loss affect the confidence of some of their players in terms of getting over the line? Do Leinster now carry the same mental block on Champions Cup finals as Ireland do in terms of reaching World Cup quarter-finals?
As a former Munster player, it was slightly strange to be willing Leinster on to success.
It's easy to align the two but you have to remember that Ireland aren’t Leinster and the Leinster management and staff are not those running the Irish set-up either.
Maybe it will rub off on Ireland in the right way. The players might become even hungrier to get over their club disappointment. You would hope that the pressure doesn’t get too much and this can be used in a positive light when aiming for an improvement in a World Cup.
As a former Munster player, it was slightly strange to be willing Leinster on to success.
As an Irish rugby supporter it felt like the right thing to do but my desire to see them get over the line was far beyond what I felt was good for the national team. It just felt like their time to achieve their next bout of success. It felt like the pressure that was accumulating was only going to result in victory but it wasn’t to be.
Despite the ferocity at which the game was played, the dominant collisions from Henshaw, Ryan, Sheehan, Conan and others, Leinster still couldn’t manage the sheer weight and physicality of Will Skelton, Uini Atonio and the rest.
Skelton dominated Jason Jenkins in one ruck, which was evidence of the physicality of the game. Jenkins was brought in as the answer to Leinster’s physicality problem at the highest level in Europe, yet they didn’t start him and he wasn’t the solution to handle Skelton either.
While Leinster seemed to have La Rochelle’s number with clever trick plays and movement around the pitch, there was only so long that they could avoid going toe to toe with the European powerhouses.
Leinster raced in to a 17-0 lead, a scoreline differential similar to what they overcame in 2011, but they weren’t able to hold on. What you don’t see is the effort that had to go in to that lead and how when La Rochelle started to claw the game back, Leinster were becoming punch drunk.
Stopping the La Rochelle maul and attack meant that Leinster were dropping their own standards in transition attack and exits.
Despite being 23-14 to the good at half-time, the stats almost read backwards. Leinster had to make 95 tackles, with seven missed, whereas La Rochelle only had to make 28 tackles with five missed. That’s a huge difference in work load, especially when a team were so dominant. Leinster struck fast and early, but they didn’t need to hold on to possession for too long to build their lead.
Their defence soaked up an insurmountable number of tackles in the first half. When you see their rush and panic to exit in the second half, it was almost as if Leinster lost their identity in kicking on their own terms and holding on to the ball.
Jamison Gibson-Park's kick out on the full, James Lowe’s two skewed kicks in quick succession, Ross Byrne being charged down and Jimmy O’Brien’s unfortunate penalty for tackling Raymond Rhule in the air - Leinster simply gave away so much possession that they wouldn’t be likely to do against most other opposition.
The second half was like a game of attack versus defence. It wasn’t until Leinster went behind that they started to play again, only for a ruck entry to cost them their last effort at winning the game.
This isn’t the end of Leinster. They had possession on La Rochelle’s goal line with a couple of minutes to play. They would back themselves nine times out of ten to get that result. I hate to say it, but Johnny Sexton would have led them to victory in that instance.
They had a maul in Munster’s 22 with 75 minutes on the clock and a two-point lead. They would back themselves nine times out of ten in that situation as well, even with a rotated team.
While some of the anti-Leinster rhetoric involves rejoicing in their disappointing loss, it’s not great for the rest of the provinces either. With that level of weekly dominance regardless of which squad plays, the complaints of budgets, squad depths and demographic advantage, Leinster still fell short. Where does that leave the rest of Ireland and most of the rest of Europe?
Two one-point losses don’t make this team a failure but their own failure to get over the line will weigh heavy on them for another while yet.
One parting thought from the European success of O'Gara and his rugby-obsessed town in La Rochelle: could he be an important figure in Ireland’s World Cup performance?
As previously discussed, Leinster is not Ireland and Andy Farrell is doing an outstanding job, so let’s not push O’Gara in to a job that is being well filled.
However, the level of detail that O’Gara must have on the other side of many Irish players could be a key factor in showing them their own blind spots. He’s had to prepare to beat Ulster twice this season, he has beaten Leinster’s internationally dominant team twice in two finals, he surely knows a lot about these players at this stage.
He also knows the outside perspective of these players. He knows how the opposition speak about them and attempt to disrupt them.
Not only that, he also analyses rugby for a living away from his role in La Rochelle. He has been picking the team apart as a pundit for a number of years.
Contractually, it won’t work in a direct sense. La Rochelle also wouldn’t like to see their head coach giving their intel back to Ireland when France are hosting the World Cup with huge expectations.
However, for a guy like that to play devil’s advocate in the build-up to a tournament would bring interesting tactical conversations. He is one of world rugby’s most tactically astute students.
O’Gara has added another chapter to his impressive story. Unfortunately, this chapter doesn’t make for pretty reading from a Leinster perspective.
Staring into that amount of effort across a season is daunting when you come off the back of a loss, but make no mistake, Leinster will go again.
Follow the United Rugby Championship final, Stormers v Munster with our live blog on the RTÉ News app or RTÉ.ie/Sport and listen to live commentary on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1. Kick-off 5.30pm Saturday
