THE MOST STRIKING aspect of Leinster’s Heineken Champions Cup final defeat to La Rochelle on Saturday was how familiar it all felt.
The manner of the loss was heartbreaking for the province, Leinster leading for the vast majority of the contest only to see the win snatched away from them with the final play of the game.
However La Rochelle were fully deserving champions, playing with more ambition and showing a remarkable discipline and accuracy in those high-pressure closing stages. As their head coach Ronan O’Gara stressed after the game, one slip there and the game is gone, but his team did everything right before replacement scrum-half Arthur Retiere squeezed over the line for the match-winning score.
Leinster will have plenty of regrets when they look back on the game, their second Champions Cup final loss in a four-year period.
As La Rochelle’s early indiscipline offered Leinster easy entries, the province continually kicked their points, diverting from their usual tactic of going to the corner and backing their maul and set-plays. Their lineout and setpiece also experienced a few malfunctions.
They didn’t get the desired impact from the bench either, and instead it was La Rochelle who raised the intensity in the second period, Leo Cullen’s side finding themselves camped in their own 22 for much of the closing quarter. Their defensive effort here was outstanding, but the law of averages suggested that once La Rochelle held onto the ball, they dam would eventually break.
This is what La Rochelle live for, and Leinster knew it was coming; just like Saracens in 2019 and 2020, and just like La Rochelle 12 months ago in their semi-final clash. It’s fine margins, but again the province came out on the wrong side of the result.
For Leinster now, it’s back to the less glamorous surroundings of the United Rugby Championship. The province will desperately want to continue their dominance in the league but this defeat will sting for some time. Johnny Sexton made it crystal clear that the Champions Cup is the one they set out to win each season. Next year’s final in the Aviva Stadium will feel like an age away, and they are unlikely to be offered such a smooth route through the tournament next season.
It was a stunning victory for La Rochelle based on a brilliant gameplan from O’Gara, his team landing major silverware for the first time in the club’s history.
They did it by executing everything Leinster would have anticipated at a high level, last year’s beaten finalists using their power to great effect, working liked dogs and adding some real quality in attack, while keeping Leinster’s lauded attack tryless in the process.
Raymond Rhule’s opening try was a wonderful move which included brilliant hands from Dillyn Leyds, their second from Pierre Bourgarit saw their maul drive straight through the Leinster pack and Retiere’s match-winner was based on hard work, desire and precision. They also left more opportunites behind them, while a Leinster attack that has looked so sharp for so much of the season failed to make any real inroads, all of their 21 points coming from kicked penalties.
“We haven’t won the game, hats off to La Rochelle, they came with a plan, it’s effective in lots of things that they do,” said Cullen.
We’re very, very close to winning the tournament, and we don’t unfortunately. But now we just need to dust ourselves off to try and turn the page quite quickly, because we’ll do a deeper review in looking to this game, similar to what we did last year.
“It’s painful, but when you see the crowds at the end, fantastic Leinster support here but what, two-thirds of the crowd (are supporting La Rochelle), there’s elation at the end, what it means to them, but that’s what makes the tournament so magical as well.”
Cullen did his best to move the focus onto Saturday’s URC quarter-final clash with Glasgow, but for many of Leinster’s frontliners another league title won’t ease the pain of this loss. It will be interesting to see how Cullen manages his squad this week, and how many of those on the pitch in Marseille feature at the RDS this weekend.
“For us now we’ve just got to turn our attention to what’s next, and that’s a quarter-final in the URC against Glasgow at the RDS, and hopefully we’ll have a big crowd,” Cullen said.
“That’s the thing in terms of that real mental strength in terms of the playing group, and staff as well, to try turn it around and get ready to go again.
“We’ve another competition to focus our attention on, and for the playing group, there will probably be some painful lessons from the game, when you lose a game of this magnitude there always is, but it’s just turn our attention now and try win another trophy, the URC, it starts with Glasgow next Saturday.
“And to be fair, the players on the field (in Marseille) are absolutely devastated, then you have the players up in the stand as well and there is probably more of those guys crying than the players on the field, so it means so much to the group.”
Another European season which looked so promising for Leinster ends in heartbreak. It’s becoming an all-too familiar feeling for them.
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