FOLLOWING THE HIGH of reaching a fourth Champions Cup final in the space of six years, Leinster are now looking to refocus for another big knockout encounter this weekend.
Despite some early pressure from Toulouse, Leinster set themselves up for another European decider with a 41-22 victory over the Top 14 outfit at the Aviva Stadium last Saturday. This means the eastern province will lock horns with La Rochelle at the closing stages of the Champions Cup for a second consecutive season, after Ronan O’Gara’s men comfortably overcame the challenge of Exeter Chiefs a day later.
Yet before Leinster can think about gaining revenge for their defeat to La Rochelle a little under 12 months ago, there is the small matter of the United Rugby Championship quarter-final showdown with Cell C Sharks in the Aviva this Saturday.
Using the example of their URC last-four defeat to the Bulls in June of last year – which came on the heels of an impressive 12-try demolition of Glasgow Warriors just six days earlier – the province’s assistant coach Robin McBryde admitted it isn’t always easy to get players back down to earth after a big win.
“We have to acknowledge that there has to be an emotional high from the weekend. You can’t just ignore it. You have to get over that pretty quick and similar to last year, we had a great win against Glasgow one week. Then I don’t know if we switched off or maybe we thought we would just turn up, I don’t know,” McBryde remarked at a Leinster media briefing in UCD yesterday.
“At the time we thought we were paying the Bulls all due respect and it is only on reflection really. You learn from your lessons and you ask what could we have done better. Did we get the build-up right? Should we have rotated more? All those questions.
“Hopefully that experience will count and we spoke about it. We’ve put ourselves in the best possible position and we just have to hammer home that advantage now.”
Given Leinster also had the measure of Toulouse in last season’s Champions Cup semi-final (on an even bigger winning margin of 40-17), only time will tell if they have taken enough steps in the current campaign to reverse the result of their subsequent last-gasp loss to La Rochelle.
It has gone according to plan in both competitions thus far – 23 wins, one draw and just one defeat from 25 fixtures – but the next few weeks will ultimately define how 2022/23 is to be remembered from a Leinster perspective.
“We haven’t got there yet, have we? We’re at the same stage as we were last year and we have worked hard to get every point to get here. Now that we’re here we just have to finish things off. We just fell short and we have to put Champions Cup to one side now. We got to this stage last year and didn’t win anything so we have to do better and make sure we are on the money.”
Just like his former international team-mate and now coaching counterpart Leo Cullen, the aforementioned O’Gara has La Rochelle challenging on two fronts with The Maritimes currently occupying second place in the Top 14 table.
Regular league meetings against Toulon and Montpellier will precede their duel with Leinster on 20 May as the Champions Cup holders aim to qualify automatically for the semi-final stage of the French league play-offs.
Speaking to BT Sport in the aftermath of their 47-28 success over Exeter on Sunday, the former Munster and Ireland fly-half attempted to outline how gruelling his side’s season has been when he said ‘the month Leinster have this month, we have it every month’.
This is a clear hint that O’Gara believes the level of competition found in the Top 14 is – on the whole – far more intense than that of the URC, but McBryde doesn’t necessarily agree with this assessment.
“The URC is very tough, you know what I mean? You’ve got the South African teams who are bringing everything with them now. In their first season they were just finding things out. They’ve got a grasp of it now and they’re bloody difficult teams to play against and they’ve raised the standard, profile, everything,” McBryde added.
“When it comes to the business end as well, they’ve got experienced players who know how to perform at their best in difficult situations and big matches. They are big game players. So I wouldn’t say we’d have it easy in any way, shape or form. It has been a tough slog.”