A lovely home, but RDS has never burned itself into the European psyche

Despite Leinster’s achievements, the RDS doesn’t carry the same reputation in strictly European terms as Thomond, Stade Marcel Michelin or Welford Road

HOME COMFORTS: Despite Leinster’s achievements, the RDS doesn’t carry the same reputation in strictly European terms as Thomond, Stade Marcel Michelin or Welford Road. Picture: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

It is in no way, shape or form scientific but the uniform response this week when a handful of former Leinster players were asked to pick out the province’s most memorable European days at the RDS was the equivalent of a vacant stare.

When Leo Cullen face Montpellier tomorrow it will mark the 16th season that Leinster have headlined at the Ballsbridge venue in the competition and yet the ground’s footprint on the tournament remains curiously light.

It’s remarkable, really.

Leinster have beaten a string of the game’s best at the show jumping arena. They’ve overcome obstacles in the considerable forms of Leicester Tigers, Toulouse, Wasps, Clermont Auvergne, Saracens, and Exeter but how many of these occasions stand out now? Really stand out?

The same could be argued of their residency at the Aviva Stadium, which stretches back almost a dozen years to when the stadium was re-opened, in that the roll call contains good games, bad games, and indifferent games. But great games?

We’re not talking your average ‘big’ match, of which there have been many, so much as the days that prompt knowing nods and wistful smiles long after the event. There are no rules here, no blueprint, just a collective recognition of an occasion that truly stood apart.

Go back through Leinster’s history in the Heineken and Champions Cups and their touchstones were all set on the road: Toulouse in 2006, Bloodgate at The Stoop, the epic Clermont semi-final in Bordeaux, ‘The Comeback’ against Northampton in the Millennium.

Even the cathartic, breakthrough defeat of Munster at Croke Park was a designated ‘away’ game. There is nothing in the home cannon like Munster’s ‘Miracle Match’ against Gloucester, or the equally bonkers defeat of Sale in 2006, to embellish the Leinster legend.

Nor is there something along the lines of their southern rivals’ traumatic but heroic semi-final loss to that great Wasps team at the old Lansdowne Road in 2004, which still merits mention and awe in any discussion of the competition’s finest days.

A week spent scrolling through past campaigns and all we can really come up with for the RDS is the 29-28 quarter-final defeat of Clermont Auvergne in 2010 when Brock James let them off the hook with a string of penalty misses, the last of them on the final whistle.

That aside? Maybe the Amlin Cup final win over Stade Francais in 2013 given it bagged them a trophy but then an injured Brian O’Driscoll contemplated doing a John Terry and wearing a full Chelsea kit for the presentation before seeing sense that day.

Hard to imagine that thought ever forming in the first place had it been the big one.

“I’m struggling myself,” said one ex-player. “All the ones I remember are away from home. The ones in the RDS were all expected wins and nothing too memorable.”

This touches on an important point. Very few teams possess a European pedigree to compare with Munster’s and yet there is always a sense of the underdog and the chip on the shoulder at the heart of the southern province. Not least when they chased that long-elusive first title.

Ulster relished the ‘Fortress Ravenhill’ moniker for years and have enjoyed long unbeaten stretches at the Kingspan since the redevelopment and yet there remains something special, intangible, to every evening when an English or French side comes up short in Belfast.

And every win Connacht secure at the Sportsground prompts elation. For Leinster, billed alongside the best England and France have to offer on an annual basis, a home win is just a baseline regardless of opposition, or circumstance.

The RDS as a venue has plenty going for it. Yes, it’s badly in need of a facelift but it boasts stands on all four sides with clear views, a glorious playing surface, and a location that most club CEOs can only dream about.

All that and a regular army of supporters. Johnny Sexton, in his autobiography, admitted that he once had to remind himself that the prospect of 17,000 fans turning up for a regular league game against the Dragons was not something to be taken for granted.

“The place has a unique atmosphere,” he wrote, “very old-world with all the stables and the picket fences, and also very family-oriented — there are always loads of kids waiting for autographs outside the dressing room after a game.

“The players’ families are looked after, also. Following every game there is food and drink put on in one of the function rooms and that was pushed by Leo and Jennings following their time at Leicester where this family vibe was pushed.”

That bonhomie was embellished when Joe Schmidt introduced the rule that even off-duty players should show their face at the post-match function to break bread with opponents. After hammering most of them on the field, of course.

That the RDS doesn’t carry the same reputation in strictly European terms as Thomond, Stade Marcel Michelin, or Welford Road owes more again to the fact that it has been shuttered voluntarily so often by the province itself.

The European Cup was almost a decade old before Leinster started playing there and only a handful of seasons after the permanent switch was made from Donnybrook before the new Aviva opened its doors and the province started letting themselves in.

Since 2010, they have played 23 European games at the RDS and 20 at the bigger house. They’re not alone in moving address — Toulouse do the same between Stade Ernest-Wallon and Le Stadium — but they reach for different keys far more than most.

Leinster’s record at the smaller ground is sensational. They have lost there just once in a dozen years, against a quartet of defeats down Lansdowne Road, although you could argue the toss about the quality of the opponents faced at the respective venues.

Ultimately, the RDS has never had the chance to burn itself into the European psyche for a variety of reasons. The visit this weekend of a Montpellier team weakened by Covid and, you suspect, a staff keeping more powder dry for domestic matters, won’t change that.