Leinster eye the bigger prize after overcoming La Rochelle nemesis
Leinster head coach Leo Cullen before the Investec Champions Cup quarter-final match against La Rochelle. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
If La Rochelle dominated the conversation around Leinster this last four years then the fifth star has always continued to be their own guiding light.
Think back to the 2020/21 knockout stages and how those rounds were billed as, effectively, the battle of the five stars with Leinster and Toulouse vying for the honour of being the first club to win a quintet of European Cups.
Toulouse won that race, edging an emerging La Rochelle in the final.
Leo Cullen touched on this after Saturday’s five-tries-to-one, 23-point defeat of the side that pipped them to the post the last two seasons. Ronan O’Gara echoed it when pointing out that this one, for all the hoo-ha, had only been a quarter-final.
So if Saturday was about healing some old wounds then that was a small slice of a bigger pie.
“It’s not about revenge,” said Cullen. “This point about losing in a final, the opposition is a bit irrelevant. I know that people like to make a lot of that part but it wouldn’t bloody matter, would it? As in, you lost in the final of the Champions Cup and the players are desperate to be in this tournament.”
La Rochelle were given their due respect as “phenomenal” champions but there are sharks left circling the shrinking pool. Not least Toulouse again who, like Leinster, made sure to tick all the right boxes in the group stages and secure ‘home’ advantage through to a possible decider in the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in May.
Harlequins’ epic win in Bordeaux caught the Leinster head coach’s eye earlier on the Saturday as well and, while he was reluctant to talk much about their own prospective semi-final opponents while the Northampton-Bulls game was still in progress, he did doff the hat to the rugby being played by the Saints right now.
For Leinster, their own thoughts turn to a two-game URC swing in South Africa. They fly out tomorrow and the sense is that they will bring some of their frontliners with a view to featuring against the Lions next weekend before returning home and leaving the Stormers game to a more callow crew.
They could leave them all at home, of course, but Leinster sit only four points clear at the top of their own ‘domestic’ league right now so there is still work to be done to secure as favourable a playoff position as possible with five regular season games remaining to be played.
This two-week detour from the crusade that is the fifth star is no bad thing given their history with La Rochelle and the difficulty that would have come with following up such a high were they contesting that semi next week. Time enough for that yet and a build-up to their Croke Park tie that will bring with it its own unique energy.
“Possibly yeah,” said Cullen on Saturday night. “You have got to decompress after some of these games and it's not just this week, it was obviously [the round of 16 tie] last week as well. Leicester are a bloody tough nut to crack.
“You see it, how the teams are trying to manage this emotional piece with whatever it is, call it a seven-day turnaround, generally, for most teams. There's different factors, travel and all the rest and throw it all into the mix, but there's the physical toll of the games.
“How you manage that is important so there's definitely this decompress, come down. It's trying to not overly hype up the following week. It will be interesting to see now, the teams that played in the quarterfinals, how they all go next week, what they do with different selections.” They press on with a fair wind behind them.
Leinster have now seen off locked and loaded Bulls, Tigers and La Rochelle teams in three successive weeks, scoring 123 points and conceding just 49. They haven’t been perfect – the penalty count against on Saturday alone was 14 and they still lack a killer touch at times in the 22 – but they are clearly building momentum.
If there is a separation point from recent seasons and their failure to claim either URC or European honours then it may be in that Jacques Nienaber blitz defence. This quarter-final was billed as a type of D-Day for the senior coach and the province and they came through it with flying colours.
Leinster conceded a total of eight tries to La Rochelle in the three knockout games they have lost to them. They gave away just the one in their two meetings with the same opponent this year. And they do say that attack wins you matches while defence will bring you trophies.
“Jacques has added to us in terms of the group and continued on the work that other coaches have delivered over the last number of seasons,” said Cullen who made sure to praise the other members of his coaching staff.
"The guys are buying into what he's doing and he has a great presence, brings a lot of experience because he's played (sic) in these big games, obviously a World Cup which is probably the highest pressure in the game, isn't it?” Nienaber will know as well as anyone that the work isn’t near done yet.
: C Frawley; J Larmour, R Henshaw, J Osbourne, J Lowe; R Byrne, J Gibson Park; A Porter, D Sheehan, T Furlong; J McCarthy, J Jenkins; R Baird, W Connors, C Doris.
Replacements: J van der Flier for Connors (49); R Molony for Jenkins (51); R Kelleher for Sheehan, M Milne for Porter and M Ala’alatoa for Furlong (all 58); H Byrne for R Byrne (63); J Conan for Doris (72); L McGrath for Gibson-Park (73).
D Leyds; J Nowell, UJ Seuteni, J Danty, T Thomas; A Hastoy, T Kerr-Barlow; L Penverne, T Latu, U Atonio; U Dillane, W Skelton; J Cancoriet, L Botia, Greg Alldritt.
Replacements: I West for Leyds (HT); T Iribaren for Kerr-Barlow (44); Q Lespiaucq-Brettes for Latu, A Kaddouri for Penverne and J Sclavi for Atonio (all 53); Y Tanga for Botia and P Boudehent for Cancoriet (both 63); T Lavault for Skelton (66).
: K Dickson (Eng).
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