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Leinster celebrate last year's home semi-final win over Toulouse. James Crombie/INPHO
home rule

Why Treviso today is the most important game of Leinster’s season

Home advantage counts in Europe and here are the stats that prove it.

AS THE TRAM rolled out from Gare Part-Dieu in Lyon, the band piped up and a carriage-full of supporters boomed out their favourite chorus.

“MONTFERRAND, Olé, Olé, Olé …. Olé, Olé, Olé …. Olé, Olé, Olé….”

It was stirring stuff. On and on they went, repeating their chant endlessly, so much so that by the time we’d reached the next stop, I could confidently say I knew most of the words.

Confidence in Leinster’s chances of pulling off an upset wasn’t as strong though; not when we stepped out onto the platform and heard the roar of a thousand voices go rumbling down the road.

This was April 2017, Champions Cup semi-final weekend; Clermont Auvergne versus Leinster, a game theoretically played at a home/neutral venue. Yet the closer you walked to that quaint old stadium on the city’s Gerland quarter, the louder the chants became.

The official attendance was 40,024 and it felt like 40,023 of them were from Clermont, all the more so when Percili Yato and David Strettle ran in a couple of early scores to put the French side 15 points up with as many minutes played.

However, this was also the day Jack Conan and Dan Leavy truly arrived; their performances sparking a comeback which reached its high point when Garry Ringrose scored a fine try to close the gap to two. The “home” side held on, though.

And in European semi-finals, they almost invariably do, 16 of the last 20 Champions Cup semis going the way of the hosts.

It’s why Leo Cullen hasn’t diverted from his script over the last eight days, consistently stressing the importance of Leinster securing a No1 seeding. As soon as you delve through the evidence, you can see why.

Over the last 10 years, there has been just one season – the 2014/15 campaign – when neither of the top two seeds made the final. Tellingly, in the 60 knock-out games of the last decade, 46 have ended in home victories, the win ratio increasing, funnily enough, in semi-finals.

Ask George Kruis about this. He’s done it both ways with Saracens, winning the Champions Cup in 2016 and 2019 on the back of having two home games in the knock-out stages; as well as doing it the hard way in 2017, when Munster failed to exploit home advantage in that year’s semi-final. 

Statistics aren’t just quirks, they’re proof that things like being at home matters,” Kruis said. “It’s a huge thing. For any team that is well drilled, and has experience in those set-ups, you would be pretty confident of winning.

“Now, say you were sitting on the other side of the fence, as we were in 2017, heading to Dublin to play Munster. Being away from home didn’t affect us at all; if anything it had the reverse effect because by half-time we were in control and the crowd went quiet. The Aviva became a bit of an eerie place for them to play in. But look, weighing it up, given the choice, you’d rather be first seeds.”

That’s the prize awaiting Leinster should they win a record a 16th straight win today. For them – for anyone – a wet January afternoon in Treviso (kick-off 1pm, BT Sport) is the rugby equivalent of a Monday night away to Stoke City. The bad pro hates these games; the good ones hate them that little bit less but get the job done regardless.

And that’s what Leinster need to do. History has shown their best European years invariably come when they have a travel-free route to the final. Three of their four European Cup triumphs followed semi-final wins in Dublin, where they have a perfect record in knock-out rugby over the last 10 years, nine wins from nine games.

Away from home, it’s a different story, a fine semi-final win over Clermont in 2012 preceding defeats away to Toulon in the 2014 quarter-final and then, a year later, to Toulon again in the semis. Plus there was the aforementioned 2017 semi-final loss to Clermont.

Not that they are the only team to suffer on the road. In fact, no club has won the Champions Cup in the last decade after being drawn away from home in both the quarters and the semis. 

So, that’s what’s at stake today. Chalk up another win and life for Leinster will become a whole lot easier down the track. This game may lack glamour, but not importance.

Leinster

15. Jordan Larmour
14. Dave Kearney
13. Garry Ringrose
12. Robbie Henshaw
11. James Lowe
10. Ross Byrne
9. Luke McGrath (capt)
1. Cian Healy
2. Seán Cronin
3. Andrew Porter
4. Devin Toner 
5. James Ryan
6. Max Deegan
7. Josh van der Flier
8. Caelan Doris

16. James Tracy
17. Peter Dooley
18. Tadhg Furlong
19. Ross Molony
20. Rhys Ruddock
21. Jamison Gibson-Park
22. Ciarán Frawley
23. Rob Kearney

Benetton Treviso

15 Jayden Hayward, 14 Angelo Esposito, 13 Luca Morisi, 12 Marco Zanon, 11 Monty Ioane, 10 Ian Keatley, 9 Tito Tebaldi, 8 Toa Halafihi, 7 Abraham Steyn, 6 Marco Barbini (C), 5 Eli Snyman, 4 Alessandro Zanni , 3 Simone Ferrari, 2 Hame Faiva, 1 Federico Zani

Replacements: 16 Tomas Baravalle, 17 Nicola Quaglio, 18 Cherif Traore, 19 Irné Herbst, 20 Giovanni Pettinelli, 21 Marco Lazzaroni, 22 Antonio Rizzi, 23 Tommaso Benvenuti

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