THEY MADE LIFE difficult for themselves but Leinster are back in another Champions Cup final after surviving a late scare at Croke Park, beating Northampton Saints 20-17 at the home of the GAA.
The province were 20-3 ahead early in the second half and looked to be cruising to victory, yet found themselves clinging on by the end as Northampton crossed for two tries to set up a tense finish.
The final whistle was met with a mix of elation and relief, with head coach Leo Cullen admitting his team have plenty room from improvement as they look to win a fifth Champions Cup title later this month.
“The score goes to 20-3 pretty early in the second half, and then I suppose there’s a human nature part to it. You can try and sit and protect what you have,” Cullen said.
“That can be the real challenge, can you try and push on at that stage? We maybe struggled with that a little bit, but credit to Northampton as well. They dug in well defensively and made life tough for us. We didn’t quite execute on certain things and they fight their way back into their game.
“They win a few 50:50 scraps and before you know it it’s down to the wire. There’s plenty of learnings there for our guys, some guys haven’t played in the last couple of weeks, does that have an effect? I don’t know.
“Listen, we’ve done enough to get through, we know we can be better, and that’s the bit we have to go after over the next couple of weeks.”
Northampton struggled to make any real inroads in the first half but eventually turned the game into a contest with their spirited second-half display.
“It’s not like anyone thinks we’re going to roll these guys over,” Cullen added. “Nobody is thinking that at any point. At 20 points to three we’re not thinking it
There’s always a bit where you can try sit and try manage the game out, but unfortunately you can manage yourself into a bit of trouble if you do that.
“There’s also the opposition, and all the things that they’re doing. For a team that has such attacking threats, to hold them to just three points for as long as we did… and there’s probably other opportunities we had, but they would say the same. That’s what you get in a knock-out game of rugby.
“The most important thing is that you get over the line, and we managed to get over the line thankfully.”
The province will now play the winners of tomorrow’s meeting between Toulouse and Harlequins in the 25 May final at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
It promises to be another memorable occasion at one of the most impressive grounds in Europe, fresh on the back of today’s sell-out semi-final at Croke Park, which set a new Champions Cup attendance record of 82,300.
“I think everyone was shocked in the most positive sense of the word when the tickets started going on sale and this thing is going to get sold out as quickly as it did.
“It was amazing the response really. We talked about it yesterday. It’s an unbelievable privilege for us to be here in front of a full house. It’s remarkable really.
We’re relieved that we were able to get a win. There’s plenty of parts to the performance that we can improve upon.
“Ultimately the most important bit is to get through and now hopefully we have a good crowd over in Spurs stadium in a few weeks’ time.”
Cullen also confirmed that Ciarán Frawley was not a concern after being forced off with a late injury.
“He’s ok, got a whack on the back. He’s alright, and he was cramping.”
