Donal Lenihan: Leinster carry all the aces against the French aristocrats
Jamison Gibson-Park. ©INPHO/Thomas Hay
Leinster are favorites to win the inaugural United Rugby Championship, which would amount to a fifth domestic league in a row, having won a trio of Guinness PRO14 titles between 2018 and 2020 along with last season’s PRO12 variant of the competition.
Brilliant and all as that run of success would be, I’ve no doubt they’d happily sacrifice those successes for what has been driving them for the last four years - their quest to add a fifth Heineken Champions Cup star to their jersey.
Last season they watched in frustration as Toulouse beat them to that historic achievement. Despite the quality of their squad, back-to-back defeat to Saracens in the 2019 final and 2020 quarter-final, coupled with last seasons chastening defeat to La Rochelle at the penultimate stage, has left Leo Cullen’s highly ambitious squad with only one prize in mind.
Everything Leinster have done since January has been geared towards arriving at this stage of the season in the best possible shape to atone for the disappointment of the last three years. Their hard fought victory over Racing 92 on a brilliant day in Bilbao in 2018, a distant memory.
Right now Leinster are driven by the failures of recent European campaigns and are hell bent on rectifying the shortcomings of recent times. Leo Cullen and Stuart Lancaster have worked minor miracles to get a side, with up to 13 regular starters for Ireland in the recent Six Nations, fit for purpose and raring to go.
By way of contrast, Cullen’s counterpart Ugo Mola presides over a Toulouse squad that looked jaded in the French Top 14, having had up to eight of their squad involved in the French Grand Slam winning squad. Mola confirmed that this week's build up revolved around “tinkering with the side in training according to the freshness and state of the players”.
For whatever reason, this Toulouse squad appears to be lacking in the depth of quality we have become accustomed to over the years, especially across a back line that has been severely hit by injuries and suspension. They are also badly suffering from the loss of the magical Cheslin Kolbe whose individual brilliance dug them out of some very tight corners last season.
Toulouse are vulnerable, even more so on the back of 100 minutes of exhaustive action in last weekend’s quarter-final classic against Munster, and Leinster know it. To fully exploit this, Leinster must seek to play with an intensity and tempo that this enormous Toulouse forward unit can’t live with.
Leinster will be so much better this week for having a testing second half of highly attritional action against the Leicester Tigers in last weeks quarter-final at Welford Road. That game was won in the three week block between Leinster’s comprehensive Round of 16 defeat of Connacht at the Aviva Stadium and last weekend’s clash against the Tigers.
Like their French international cohorts with Toulouse, Leinster’s Irish contingent were exhausted after their Six Nations exploits and the demands of those back to back games against Connacht. The fact that Leinster were scheduled to travel to South Africa for a block of URC games forced Cullen’s hand when he made the calculated decision to keep all his frontline troops at home.
Much of that period was dedicated to a training block. In an interview in the lead up to the Leicester game, Robbie Henshaw revealed that their fortnight at home was far from a holiday. “We’ve been getting our legs run off us by Stuart, which hasn’t been enjoyable. We’ve done a lot of fitness work, a lot of contact work because we know Leicester are a big side with big ball carriers.”
In that respect, Toulouse are no different with so many monstrous forwards for Leinster to deal with. In all their defeats at the knock out phase of Europe since 2018, the explosive power and physicality of the Saracens and La Rochelle forwards proved instrumental in Leinster’s downfall. Cullen knows that in order to overcome this, his side need to play at a pace that their bigger opponents just can’t live with.
To facilitate this, they have finetuned their technique at the breakdown and now operate with a precision, in terms of support for the ball carrier and ball placement, that deliver quick ball at the ruck which enables Jamison Gibson-Park wreak havoc with his lightening service.
To sustain that level of intensity, Leinster’s conditioning has to be world class. The training block they enjoyed in that three week period without a game, when their academy charges were impressing in South Africa, has placed them in peak condition for the remainder of the season.
On the flip side, due to the demands of the Top 14, Toulouse appear to be surviving from game to game, operating on fumes. Last weekend’s exhaustive outing against Munster has meant that this week has been primarily focused on recovery.
That said, Mola also admitted that they had been preparing for a potential face off with Leinster at some stage and, consequently, had their technical homework well in advance. Make no mistake, having lost 30-12 to Leinster in Dublin in the 2019 quarter final, Toulouse have been waiting in the long grass.
The one thing Lancaster will be conscious of, when doing the review of how Munster succeeded in handling the challenge posed by the Toulouse pack, was their efforts were frustrated by far to many long breaks, for a variety of reasons, which allowed the French draw breath. They will also have noted how successful Munster were in generating turnovers, 19 in total, due to the voracious appetite and work rate of the Munster back row.
In Caelan Doris, Jack Conan and Josh Van Der Flier, Leinster have a breakaway unit capable of emulating the explosive impact delivered by their counterparts in red, Peter O Mahony, Alex Kendellen and Jack O Donoghue, last weekend.
Van Der Flier is in the form of his life and has a massive role to play in replicating the turnover havoc created by Munster. Where Leinster are even more clinical than Munster is in the way their ball big carriers explode onto possession and carry into contact. That, coupled with the accuracy of their clean out, has provided ball on a plate service for the Leinster half backs.
While Munster were far more positive in attack last weekend and succeeded in asking serious questions of the Toulouse midfield, Leinster are even more creative. In Henshaw and Garry Ringrose, they have a centre pairing on the top of their game which offers them a distinct advantage over Pita Ahki and Pierre Fouyssac in Toulouse colours.
In addition, Hugo Keenan owns the back field, is rock solid under the high ball, and is developing into an outstanding counter attacker. He is the guy who has transformed Leinster’s transition from defence to attack. Keenan has a willing partner in James Lowe and his ability to pop up in support roles off his wing, has added a new dimension to Leinster’s play.
While the big battle goes on up front, fans will be treated to the sight of two of the most influential playmakers in the game, pit their wits against one another in an attempt to shape the destiny of their respective teams.
While Gibson-Park has been outstanding all season, outside him Johnny Sexton remains the key decision maker. He looked fully at ease in Welford Road last time out, absorbing the now traditional hits early on in the game, from the likes of Springbok No 8 Jasper Wiese,that he has become so accustomed to. He was operating in cruise control.
When it comes to directing the way Toulouse play, Antoine Dupont is every bit as crucial to the fortunes of his side as Sexton is for Leinster, despite the presence outside him of French out half Romain Ntamack.
When the recent games against Ulster and Munster were in the balance in the final quarter, Dupont was switched to No 10 to see his charges over the line. He, like Sexton, is another cruise control operator, even if his form has dipped somewhat since the start of the year. That doesn’t mean, however, that he still hasn't been delivering game changing moments.
There’s a big game in the diminutive No 9 due to come soon and someone is going to suffer. Right now Leinster carry all the aces into a fascinating duel they should, just about, have too much all round class and quality to be caught.
