Ronan O'Gara's defensive revolution takes down Leinster's aristocrats

La Rochelle head coach Ronan O'Gara: Led his side to the Heineken Champions Cup final with this win over Leinster. Picture: Julien Poupart/Sportsfile

Leinster’s regrets will be many, though far from uniform.

Though bullied up front as the day went on, it was their inability to make more hay while they dominated in the La Rochelle sun that irritated Leo Cullen most, the hosts’ difficulties in that opening stretch summed up by the regularity with which Dillyn Leyds lost a dropping ball in the blinding rays.

Luke McGrath put his finger on that very same sore spot. Leinster really should have earned more from their blistering start than a 7-0 lead, but the scrum-half’s eye came to rest on a later chapter when scanning back through the afternoon’s events.

“It was just disappointing, that first 20 minutes of the second half,” McGrath said. “We couldn’t get into our flow, into our attack, and ultimately that is probably where the game was lost.”

Leinster went 50 minutes without a score. Few sides can survive such a drought in a game played under so searing a spotlight and Jono Gibbes, La Rochelle’s director of rugby, was keen to pass the acclaim for this onto his head coach.

Gibbes had been effusive last week in his praise for how Ronan O’Gara has stitched a commitment to defence into the fabric of a club that had always felt that side of the game to be, well, unfashionable.

The results, even prior to this Heineken Champions Cup semi-final, were clear. La Rochelle have, by a considerable margin, the best defensive record in the Top 14 but this was the acid test of all that work. The results were emphatic.

“That’s a massive credit to Rog in that we were under pressure,” said Gibbes. “We knew they were going to fire good shots at us and… we changed nothing in our defence and just stayed resolute, stayed disciplined to the system that he’s put in place, that he’s created and it told.

“It’s a compliment to hear Leinster struggled against our defence. That’s always good, but we still conceded two tries, so there’s work to do. Certainly the discipline around the breakdown and being patient about when to go out at the ball on the ground and when to just keep people up on feet, that’s something we can take forward from that experience.”

The belief this will instil in what is still a burgeoning project is hard to quantify. Gibbes touched on the half-time interval here, how they took a collective breath in the sheds and realised what a good place they were actually in after weathering that early storm.

It will be the sixth all-French decider in the tournament’s history and it was Toulouse who won the first thee of those. La Rochelle have stopped one club claiming a fifth star. Now they stand in the way of another following the same path.

Toulouse in the final is another level again, if not in calibre of opponent then in context. Ugo Mola’s side have beaten them in five of their last six meetings, twice this season, but we will have a French winner either way after the final at Twickenham.

“It does change it. That’s the reality. Playing Leinster for these guys was hugely exciting, first time in the club’s history, they are an Irish team, not in the Top 14,” said Gibbes.

Lots of things that just created a real buzz and excitement and that’s what Europe should be.

“We’ve now got a French team in the final that have done a number on us home and away this year, that has a great European pedigree. They’ve won the last (Bouclier de) Brennus that was played so, dead right, it does change it a little bit for us.”