Brilliant Bulls bring Leinster season to a frustrating end
10 June 2022; Jonathan Sexton of Leinster reacts towards referee Andrea Piardi during the United Rugby Championship Semi-Final match between Leinster and Vodacom Bulls at the RDS Arena in Dublin. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
Well, well, well. The URC just got interesting. The idea was that the arrival of South Africa’s leading franchises into the gig once known as the Celtic League would inject some much-needed class and jeopardy into proceedings but no-one expected this.
Not here, not in a Dublin semi-final.
The Bulls didn’t travel as no-hopers, far from it, but they did tear up the script with a performance and a result that deprives Leinster of a fifth straight league title and deepens their sense of despair two weeks after their Champions Cup final loss to La Rochelle.
It was an extraordinary effort by the visitors who fielded a dozen of the same starters that had lost 31-3 here in round one and a side that had scraped past the Sharks with an injury-time drop goal at Loftus Versfeld just six days and over 9,000 kilometres earlier.
Next for them is the winners of the Stormers and Ulster.
It was a treat to witness, if you were a neutral. Just the sort of game and occasion the organisers wanted when they expanded the competition and the roars of an increasingly edgy crowd that numbered only 11,565 told a story all of its own.
The signs were there from the first exchanges that this would be different to Leinster’s 62-point shellacking of Glasgow in the quarter-final although, unlike that time, it was the Irish side that opened the scoring.
Physical they might be but the Bulls’ defensive maul has been a weakness and the hosts made inroads via that route off a lineout nine minutes in. A few pick and jams later and Dan Sheehan was squeezing over for a converted try.
The response was breathtaking.
A Chris Smith penalty served as a settler then Jake White’s side launched their own assault off a throw from touch. This one ended with a few punches up the gut and a superb whipped pass out to Canan Moodie on the wing.
The full-back somehow managed to let the ball slip before grounding but the TMO’s reprieve was shortlived and an earlier offside allowed the Bulls to send hooker Johan Grobbelaar over from a fiendishly clever quick tap. Game on.
Five minutes later and they went over again - off another lineout. There was an element of luck about it as the ball spilled out the side of a developing ruck but Marcel Coetzee’s rush under the posts was all that mattered.
With Smith converting twice, they were 17-7 to the good.
Leinster were making mistakes across too many departments and being punished by a sharp Bulls side that wasn’t so much outmuscling them as just playing better rugby but the reigning champions narrowed the gap before the break.
Robbie Henshaw made it and finished it, the Ireland centre keeping a move alive with a delicious behind-the-back pass to Jordan Larmour and reinserting himself into the chain by carrying the ball over the line and a defender with it.
Three points down at the break, Henshaw made life difficult for Leinster when dropping the restart but a long defensive set ended with an Andrew Porter steal. Impressive stuff but the Bulls returned the favour when Leinster moved upfield. This was the stuff.
The second-half stalemate wasn’t broken until the 53rd-minute when the Bulls splintered Leinster’s defensive maul off a lineout. So much so that it left the Italian referee with no hesitation in awarding the penalty try and sending James Ryan to the sinbin.
Leinster didn’t concede during Ryan’s time away but they really should have scored themselves when, with Johnny Sexton recently introduced, they messed up three chances to reduce the ten-point deficit.
Jack Conan ignored an overlap when putting the head down and two lost lineouts were also added to the pile of regrets and mistakes. It took them until the 70th-minute to open their second-half account but they managed it in style.
Yet again it came from a lineout but it was Henshaw’s inside pass to Larmour that opened the field and it ended with Rory O’Loughlin running over unencumbered in the corner for a score that Sexton couldn’t cap with the extra two.
There would be no smash and grab. Morne Steyn came off the bench to land an insurance penalty that left eight in it and the clock had long since stopped by the time Cian Healy went over and Sexton added the conversion.
Sensational.
J O’Brien; J Larmour, G Ringrose, R Henshaw, R O’Loughlin; R Byrne, J Gibson-Park; A Porter, D Sheehan, T Furlong; J McCarthy, J Ryan; C Doris, J van der Flier, J Conan.
M Ala’alatoa for Furlong (51); R Molony for McCarthy and J Sexton for Byrne (54); L McGrath for Gibson-Park (66); R Ruddock for Conan (70); C Frawley for O’Loughlin (77); C Healy for Porter (79).
C Moodie; D Kriel, C Hendricks, H Vorster, M Tambwe; C Smith, Z Burger; G Steenkamp, J Grobbelaar, M Smith; W Steenkamp, R Nortje; M Coetzee, A Botha, E Louw.
KL Arendse for Kriel (HIA, 37); S Matanzima for G Steenekamp, R Hunt for M Smith and J Swanepoel for W Steenkamp (all 57); E Papier for Burger (64); B Du Plessis for Grobbelaar (66); WJ Steenkamp for Botha (72); M Steyn for Smith (73).
A Piardi (Ita).
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