Ronan O'Gara: Leinster need to find those inches...wherever they come from

HOW MANY MEDALS? Jordan Larmour, Ciaran Frawley and Rieko Ioane at Leinster training. Pic: ©INPHO/Grace Halton

Most will recite Al Pacino’s ‘Inches’ classic locker room speech from ‘Any Given Sunday’ on demand but there’s another line we relate to when the knockouts came down to one last play for Tony D’Amato’s Miami Sharks.

I’ve been in too many of these, sighed Al Pacino, a head ready to explode. Amen to that.

Last Saturday in Perpignan, desperate for the win to keep La Rochelle’s Top 14 play-off hopes flickering, we were 28-26 down in the last two minutes. We needed two points and the state of panic seemed to be around scoring a try when there had been open goal drop goals opportunities. The thumping in my head was loud and clear: what were we doing?

Then – watch the video if you are reading this online - we are two metres from the line, and go (risky) long pass from Nolann Le Garrec to Davit Niniashvili, and then another looking for Ihaia West, that’s intercepted. Game over, ball burst, season done?

Not so quick. Ihaia West, who has hardly accumulated three poaches in his entire time here, chops the Perpignan player, locks on and we get the penalty decision. Tony D’Amato would understand: from being so close to actually tearing your hair and gouging your own eyes out, you flip to salvation. Nothing you can conjure goes nowhere near the emotion experienced in the moment. This was beyond tension. I must have a good heart. People saw how I was in the coach’s box in the final seconds of the 2023 Champions Cup final in Dublin and imagine that’s a once-in-a-career moment. My dear people, that’s an everyday occupational hazard. On that said topic, my thoughts are with my former Munster doctor, Tadhg O'Sullivan's young boy who had a cardiac episode on the pitch last Saturday. I understand Sam O'Sullivan is recovering well - as is the great Uini Atonio, by the by. Results come and go, but life is precious.

For the weekend’s semi-finalists in the Champions and Challenge Cups, the season might come down to a dramatic mini-series like that. Coaches will rightly speak of the performance and the search for consistency, but context is king at this stage of the season. Ten months have come and gone, grinding, improving, losing confidence and form, reclaiming it, having best-laid plans torpedoed by injury to kep players at key moments. And now it’s all on 80 minutes.

Against Perpignan, we gave them so many opportunities to stay in the fight. We were frustratingly inaccurate at times but massive heart and mental strength helped us pull it out of the fire. Does a poor performance sour the victory? No. If we lost In Perpignan, the season was over. Perpignan at home are no mugs. They would beat pretty much any of the URC sides on their day. And the win means we get to go again. Same for Leinster and Toulon, for Bordeaux and Bath in the Champions Cup.

Toulon have found a seam of form and have gone from crisis club to dangerous foe. The quarter final win in Glasgow has turned their campaign around. They put 52 points on Bayonne last weekend and with their European history, they have pedigree. That matters. They will not curdle at the sight of the blue jersey and its four stars. If games were played on paper we would accentuate the obvious: if Leinster are at it in front of their own fans, there should only be the one result. For me, it would be a massive shock for Toulon to turn over Leinster. Where the hunger levels for Leinster are, with their painful semi-final and final learnings, and with a massive point to prove, they should be aiming to crucify Toulon.

But the Leinster question delves far deeper than the top line. No European title since 2018, one Champions Cup win since 2012, the questions are all about their ability and nerve at the sharp end of Europe. Toulon will be fully au fait with that as all three recent final losses have been to their Top 14 rivals. It’s clearly a bugbear of every boy in blue that Leinster have a question mark over their backbone but there is only answer to all that.

Leo Cullen’s side are still mightily dangerous, but the Leinster crest and jersey, the names on the team sheet, wouldn’t have the same aura about it as it would in previous times. Toulon will feel they can go to Aviva and win, even if they are still outsiders for me. I can’t speak to the environment in Leinster, but these boys are looking at their medals drawer and there isn’t a lot in it and that has to be a huge motivating factor for them to get it done at least once more?

Reports in France indicate Toulon will start Ben White, who had a good Six Nations with Scotland, and launch Baptiste Serin around the 40 minutes. Melvyn Jaminet has a really good kicking game which Leinster won’t want to encourage and watch out for whipper-snapper winger Mathis Ferti. The Argentinian out half Tomas Albornoz is competent but they have serious operators up front in Charles Ollivon, Kyle Sinclair, Zach Mercer and Jean Baptiste Cros to ensure they will compete on a par. It’s just whether can they be accurate with their attack and score tries. Their Italian centre, Nacho Brex, scored a serious try in Glasgow and winger Gaël Dréan is wicked quick so while they are no longer the Toulon with luminaries like Wilkinson, Bastareaud et al, they have plenty about them to capitalise on any Leinster fragility, tactical or psychological.

Leinster haven’t shown form to suggest they are ruthless killers, but Bordeaux Begles go into their Sunday semi against Bath after getting dismantled by Montpellier with a fairly full deck. Johann van Graan will have taken plenty from that video. The Bilbao final should be Bordeaux-Leinster but with Finn Russell, nothing is predictable. He will love that fast pitch in Bordeaux, Bath have gone slightly under the radar in France but they will bring a good game plan with good entry strategies.

We can watch with our legs kicked back this weekend. The game of games for La Rochelle is next weekend away to my old buddies, Racing 92, Then we have Toulouse at home, Montauban away and Stade Francais at home to finish. Headaches, heart palpitations, soaring highs and lows. Leo Cullen and the lads know the score.

Everything is still possible.