Proud Schmidt hails indomitable Leinster heroes
For too many years, it was Munster who carried that unwanted mantle of ‘best team to have never won a Heineken Cup’. Leinster, too, had to shoulder the burden for a time. Now, it is Clermont Auvergne sagging beneath layers of disappointment.
For five years now, Vern Cotter’s side have carried expectation and intent onto European battlefields and, time and again, their ambitions have been undone by Irish opponents who simply refuse to bow to their impeccable credentials.
Eight times now they have lost to the provinces. They have been bettered in the pools, in a quarter-final and now in the last four. This, undoubtedly, will be the hardest to take and Joe Schmidt will know how deep the disappointment will be on his old hunting ground.
“I do feel sorry for Clermont because I spent a great time there but that is sport,” said the Leinster coach, who found himself standing helpless, and with heart in mouth as Le Jaunards pounded away at the Leinster line. His exact thoughts? “Please lads, keep throwing yourselves in front of the bus — and they did that. It was all we could do to keep them off our line. We had to keep the space from underneath them so they couldn’t score and the lads did that superbly. There’s a lot of pride that we did that.”
It wasn’t perfect. Far from it.
A number of Leinster players spoke afterwards about the holes in their performance but once again they displayed an ability to find a way to win and they did it in a game which appeared to be getting away from them at half-time when they trailed by six points. The respite was used to good effect. Jonathan Sexton called the pre-planned move from which they scored the game’s only try after 43 minutes and the manner in which they repaired a faltering scrum and iffy lineout were just as impressive.
This was as good as it gets.
“They’re probably the best team in France at the moment,” said Brian O’Driscoll, “and now that they’ve won their first French championship this was the next thing that they were after. They really wanted to lift that Heineken Cup.
“To give ourselves the opportunity to win three in four years is great but that’s all it is — an opportunity. There’s still a lot of playing left and I’m sure that there’ll be a province who will think that their team can do a job on us.”
Leinster and Ulster clash in that Twickenham final in three weeks’ time but many of those players will come face to face today when 38 Irish internationals report to Carton House for a one-day international camp.
“It’s a fantastic occasion for Ireland to have two finalists,” said O’Driscoll.
“It’s brilliant, it really is. Yeah, it should be good fun in camp. There should be a little bit of banter floating around.”
