Last-ditch Leinster heartbreak as La Rochelle realise European dream
TOPSHOT - La Rochelle's players celebrate after French wing Artur Retiere scored during the European Rugby Champions Cup, rugby union final between Stade Rochelais (La Rochelle) and Leinster at the Velodrome Stadium in Marseille, southeastern France, on May 28, 2022. (Photo by Pascal GUYOT / AFP) (Photo by PASCAL GUYOT/AFP via Getty Images)
Ronan O’Gara’s La Rochelle are champions of Europe for the first time and they did it in the most dramatic way imaginable with Arthur Retiere’s 79th-minute try deciding it and denying Leinster a cherished fifth star.
It was no more than the Top 14 side deserved having nullified their opponents for large portions of the evening. The eventual champions scored three tries while Leinster managed none and La Rochelle even played ten minutes of the second half with 14 men after a silly yellow card.
They did this the hard way.
As a contest it was gripping but, as so often with finals, the quality didn’t hit the desired heights. There were far too many penalties, far too many stoppages and not enough eye-catching moments to please the casual fan but that doesn’t matter a jot now.
This was La Rochelle's third final in a row but the defeats to Toulouse in last year's European and Top 14 deciders clearly made the thoughts of anything less than victory here unbearable. They certainly gave that impression.
For the Irish province it is a bitter disappointment. Heavy favourites for this one, they never got their game going and huge credit for that must go to the victors whose work at the breakdown was excellent on a hot and heavy day in the south of France.
The La Rochelle travelling contingent had made the pre-game hours a riot of colour and entertainment and they chorused the ensuing game from start to finish, their jeers and cheers providing the backdrop to almost every action.
That had cause for both in a first half where they started slowly and incurred the wrath of referee Wayne Barnes all too often while, at the same time, unsettle a Leinster side that had to dig deep far too often just to keep the scoreboard on a more or less even keel.
Two Johnny Sexton penalties gave Leinster a solid footing inside the first nine minutes and Barnes even then felt the need to give Will Skelton some advice. “You need to calm down or you’ll be leaving,” said the Englishman.
La Rochelle’s discipline would continue to fail them in that 40 minutes – the half-time penalty count was 9-3 - but any sense that the tone had been set for the day and Leinster were going to disappear over the horizon was turned on its head in the tenth minute.
All it took was one clever offload from Dillyn Leyds to set Raymond Rhule free inside the 22 and behind the defensive line. There was nobody home and the South African sauntered in. Ihaia West, a kicker who is prone to off days, nailed the conversion from an angle.
It wouldn’t be his last. La Rochelle now led 7-5.
Leinster, so assured for so long against Leicester and Toulouse, looked uncertain of themselves through much of that half. Running plays went to ground, lineouts were missed, a couple of scrums were shaky and Dan Sheehen had to come on for Ronan Kelleher.
The La Rochelle fans sensed all this. The first rousing rendition of ‘La Marseillaise’ belted around the ground during one break in play but Leinster went back in front after 22 minutes with a third Sexton penalty and after an earlier relieving kick by James Lowe in his own 22.
Both sides put in some impressive defensive sets, driving back countless attacking plays in their own territory, but La Rochelle were playing the better rugby with ball in hand and Rhule in particular was a danger every time he took possession.
Leinster’s scrambled state was evidenced by a Sexton attempt at a drop goal from just inside his own half near to the half-hour and there was concern of a different kind when the veteran out-half went down shortly after wincing with the pain in his left ankle.
What felt at the time like a crucial moment arrived with half-time imminent and La Rochelle set for a scrum five metres out from the Leinster line: touch judge Christophe Ridley flagged an offence by loosehead Dany Priso just as Barnes was about to ping the Irish province.
Big break.
Not long after and Leo Cullen’s men were packing down five metres out from the La Rochelle line after a lineout, maul and Jimmy O’Brien kick that left Brice Dulin stuck inside his in-goal area and tackled by the lightning Jamison Gibson-Park.
The net result of it all was a free-kick, a quick tap and another penalty, this one for offside. Sexton duly slotted his fourth of the game to leave it 12-7 to the favourites at the break but both sides had reasons to be frustrated at that point.
West reduced the arrears to two on the restart after Caelan Doris was penalised for not releasing but Leinster found enough in attack, in the tight and out the back, over the next ten minutes to pressure La Rochelle into more indiscretions from which Sexton made it 15-10 and then 18-10.
It settled nothing.
La Rochelle’s second try came midway through that second period with a lineout and driving maul paving the way for hooker Pierre Bourgarit to go over. West’s conversion brought the gap back to just one and everything to play for.
And then Thomas Lavault suffered a rush of blood to the head. Why the second row felt the need to stick out a foot and trip Jamison Gibson-Park in midfield is a mystery but it earned him a yellow card, ten minutes in the bin and a penalty for Leinster.
Ross Byrne put that one over, having just replaced Sexton, but La Rochelle made light of their numerical disadvantage to pummel Leinster from there through to the end of the game, pinning them tight to their own goal line for what felt like an eternity.
The winning moment came when replacement scrum-half Retiere slipped at the base of one ruck, recovered his feet and dived for the line under Garry Ringrose’s attempted tackle and milliseconds before Michael Ala’alatoa could get to him.
West added the conversion but it was Retiere’s individual moment of magic that won it. A brilliant piece of improvisation and a fitting way to claim the club’s first major trophy.
H Keenan; J O’Brien, G Ringrose, R Henshaw, J Lowe; J Sexton, J Gibson-Park; A Porter, R Kelleher, T Furlong; R Molony, J Ryan; C Doris, J van der Flier, J Conan.
D Sheehan for Kelleher (15); R Byrne for Sexton (63); C Healy for Porter and M Ala’alatoa for Furlong (both 63); R Ruddock for Doris (66); L McGrath for Gibson-Park (75); J McCarthy for Molony (77).
B Dulin; D Leyds, J Sinzelle, J Danty, R Rhule; I West, T Berjon; D Priso, P Bourgarit, U Atonio; T Lavault, W Skelton; W Liebenberg, M Haddad, G Alldritt.
R Bordeau for Haddad (30-38) and Liebenberg (60); R Wardi for Priso (55); J Sclavi for Atonio (62); A Retiere for Berjon (64); F Bosch for Bourgarit (66); J Favre for Leyds (67); L Bontia for Danty (68); R Sazy for Lavault (75).
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
