Leinster's adopted Kiwis prove pivotal in Irish sport's grandest cathedral

Leinster’s Jamison Gibson-Park is presented with the Investec Player of the Match Award Pic ©INPHO/James Crombie

Skim through the 15 games, amounting to 1,200-plus minutes, that were played during rugby’s first residency in Croke Park and the sight of Shane Horgan mid-air and catching Ronan O’Gara’s crosskick in the corner is the image that stands out a country mile.

It is a picture that would hang in the Louvre were Horgan French and it was lauded as a score that summed up the unusual crossover of codes – a Corkman punting, a Meathman plucking the ball from the skies - on one of the most historic days in Irish sport at GAA HQ.

All these memories resurfaced ahead of Leinster’s return to the ground after 15 years and a Champions Cup semi-final against Northampton Saints but there was no crushing defeat of the English this time. No picture perfect symbol of victory. Nothing near it.

This time it was Ciaran Frawley rising high in the corner to take a crucial catch but Leinster were only ten points up with the clock ticking down, trying to hold off a late Northampton surge and the ball was landing just inches from the home team's try line.

The Saints made it over for a converted Tom Seabrook try soon after - with Frawley still on the deck receiving medical attention - and it made the closing five minutes a torturous time for a team and a fan base burned so badly by late losses in recent years.

How had it come to this? How did a side cruising towards the final, 20-3 up approaching the hour-mark, find themselves praying for the final whistle on a day when they attracted 82,300 people to their banner. May Day weekend? More like mayday.

Leinster's Jamison Gibson-Park makes a pass

There are two ways to look at this: as another example of this team’s frailties when it comes to the business end of the season, or as a shot across the bows before they face either Toulouse or Harlequins in the decider at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium.

It may be a touch of both but what this strange if ultimately successfully semi-final win tells us again is the importance to a side dubbed by some as ‘Ireland in Blue’ of two players born and sourced on the other side of the world.

Jamison Gibson-Park didn’t play any Gaelic football growing up in New Zealand’s Great Barrier Island but the Leinster scrum-half has adapted seamlessly to every facet or Irish life since making the move to Dublin eight years ago and Croker was no different.

There was a moment on Friday during the side’s captain’s run at Croke Park when Leinster played a game of attack and defence with an O’Neill’s Gaelic ball and Gibson-Park, surrounded by players waiting to swarm, punched on a dropping ball to a teammate.

It was a nothing of a thing and a snippet of brilliance all in one. A nanosecond of game smarts with an unfamiliar sphere that ensured the move would go on seamlessly rather than stymie. And it would have worked just as well in an All-Ireland final.

He did it again here when, with 15 minutes gone, Caelan Doris punched as far as the Northampton line and popped up a pass to him in traffic. Catch it and he was caught himself so he swatted at it like a fly and towards James Lowe on the wing for a simple try.

If it lacked the visual magnificence of the O’Gara/Horgan combo then it made up for it in impact and it followed on from a sublime tap penalty and long pass for Lowe from five metres out for the first score four minutes earlier.

This wasn’t supposed to be another Gibson-Park appreciation piece but this is the attention he demands. People have talked for years about who the most important player in Irish rugby is, whether that be Johnny Sexton or Tadhg Furlong. It’s Gibson-Park right now.

A hat-trick for Lowe, Leinster's other Kiwi adoptee, proved yet again how important these two have been to Leinster in recent years. That they should be so pivotal in this most beloved of Irish temples only stressed their worth further.

Gibson-Park is 32, Lowe 31 so maybe it's timely that RG Snyman and Jordie Barrett are arriving as reinforcements next year when Leinster are planning on playing again here on Jones’ Road, and in the Aviva, while the RDS is closed for refurbishment.

Those two signings have created all sorts of stir in Irish rugby this last few months but here again was proof that the provinces, whether Leinster or any of the others, are still ultra-dependent on that touch of stardust from foreign shores at this level.