JOHNNY SEXTON SAYS Leinster’s Champions Cup final loss to La Rochelle was a “devastating” defeat to stomach, after the French side recorded a dramatic victory in Marseille.
Sexton was looking to win his – and Leinster’s – fifth Champions Cup title and while they controlled the scoreboard for much of the game, a spirited and well drilled La Rochelle side turned in a massive effort to snatch the win with the last play of the game, tries from Raymond Rhule, Pierre Bourgarit and Arthur Retiere seeing the French side pull off a remarkable resulting in Marseille, delivering the club’s first Champions Cup title.
“Everyone is pretty devastated in there,” said Sexton.
“It’s a tough way to lose, in the last second and not even have a chance to come back and try and win the game.
“Look, you can’t fault the effort, the spirit. To hold La Rochelle out for the last however many minutes it was, was incredible.
“You can’t fault the effort, at times, it comes down to the bounce of the ball and a couple of decisions. We will look at them but we will also look at ourselves about some of the inaccuracies that we had.
“We were in a position to win the game, we just couldn’t nail it.”
While Leinster still have a United Rugby Championship quarter-final against to look forward to next Saturday, this is the tournament the province so desperately want to win each season, Sexton admitting “it’s the pinnacle for us every year” during his pre-match press conference on Fruday.
“We judge ourselves off both (the URC and Champions Cup) but ultimately, yeah, I can’t contradict what I said yesterday, this is the one that everyone wants to win.
This is the one we desperately wanted to win, and we’ve come within 60 seconds of it, it’s a pretty bad dressing room to be in at the moment.
“A couple of slips, and fair play to Retiere for reaching out. It was tough to take. Obviously there were a lot of things that didn’t go our way in the last 30 minutes when we were in control of the game. That’s the devastating bit.”
It was a cruel way to lose, but Ronan O’Gara’s La Rochelle were full value for their win, outscoring the province 3-0 in terms of tries and implementing a clever gameplan to contain Leo Cullen’s side.
“We had chances to score, probably, at times, and we could have been a bit more aggressive and gone for tries on a couple of those penalties, because they were repeatedly infringing,” Sexton continued.
“But we decided to keep the scoreboard ticking over, but hindsight is a great thing, everyone is an expert. We made the decisions, and we were in control. A couple of big moments, a couple of big decisions that put them in a position to get into our 22.
“They had just gone down to 14, and we give away a high tackle which… I don’t know… They got down to our 22, and we don’t get out of there again. Fair play to the lads, how brave they were and how well defended. I thought we were going to hold out, but we didn’t.”
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A minute silence in brown tomas monday
@mark o donovan: Good one. How original
@mark o donovan: you’re very accomplished in your cut ‘n’ paste skills. Numpty
@mark o donovan: pathetic comment
@mark o donovan: Better than the Clonakilty brigade anyway.
Irish Teams need to learn to be able to accept our wins and losses. I hope there won’t be the normal inquisition over this one, the nonsense over bigger packs, beaten up etc. Leinster demolished bigger packs of Toulouse and Leicester (arguably) but excuses were made by everyone (tired Team, time off etc). When we lose we go into crazy soul searching and doubt. LAR came with a game plan to slow the ball down and it worked perfectly. They were lucky Barnes didn’t bin them earlier which would have completely changed the dynamics of the game. Small margins. Leinster didn’t play well but their style of play is the right approach and on another day they win it.
@Derek Cassidy: well said. Just wasn’t our day. La Roc did their homework and credit to them. Any other day we could have beaten them. Hoping the chins are up the leinster defense was quality at times as was LaRo. Sexton is around another year so still has a chance to get the fifth star. Well played lads just wasn’t our year. Getting to the final the way we did was brilliant and very enjoyable to watch.
@Derek Cassidy: Yeah, absolutely. If we’d hung on for the win, we’d all be saying how our amazing defense won it.
@Derek Cassidy: what? How many scrum penalties did Toulouse and Leicester win? As for today, whatever about bigger pack, there’s a slight problem when they clearly were the better pack.
@Derek Cassidy: the slow it down game plan mightn’t have worked as well on another day or even with a different referee – ultimately Leinster kick penalties when maybe they need to be braver and go for the corner – analysis of LAR showed they finish strong but then that’s easy say when scoreboard is ticking over
@Ron: could be good for Irish team and RWC that we didn’t get this one done: hunger for 2023
@Derek Cassidy: dead right. Leinster have spent the season displaying their superiority and giving performances that have achieved global recognition. ROC beat them today by doing everything we expected of leinster. In the first half they were ballsy, fast and wide wide. Won the game by basing that on hard, close victories. My heart is with the leinster lads, defeated, hunger will be off the charts from here. Show your greatness
Connacht abu
@Ciaran Kennedy: exactly my point. Why does it matter how many scrum penalties we gave away? It’s not our game to have big beefy players to win scrums. We have destroyed top quality opposition through expansive play, fast rucks and mobile players. Take the win! Today we could easily have won and on another day probably would have. Small margins. I don’t see the point in getting caught up on the beefy pack argument when we don’t have them (Ireland) and we don’t play that way. (Although I’d love Leinster to sign a top quality second row!)
@Derek Cassidy: I disagree. Our scrum has been in trouble for a while now & we just can’t beat the bigger teams when it matters. We’ll done LAR implanting your plan to exploit that. Dublin 23 will be a different prospect
@Derek Cassidy: The Leinster pack can’t scrummage. A slip let Furlong off a humiliation. Farrell needs to instruct Cullen to go and find some monster props who are Irish or Irish Qualified and insert them in the Leinster pack. ASAP. Playing a poor man’s version of Rugby League has now been found out (thank God!) and Rugby Union needs to learn to embrace the contest that the scrum always was and what the positional requirements are.
If you only play rugby in a few schools in South Dublin and it’s played by a soft class, it may be the result that when you get in among the street fighters you don’t know what to do because you’ve been cruising around D4.
@Stephen Drake: as$head
@Stephen Drake: Phew, nasty comment.
It just didn’t happen for Les Bleus today.
@Stephen Drake: hard enough to put manners on every other province in Ireland.
@Stephen Drake: stupid Fn comment – maybe you should actually look at where many of the players are from. – Leinster not Dublin & not D4 either
@Patrick Waldron Healy: Drake comment was inappropriate, but almost understandable based on your comment! You believe Leinster exist to put manners on the other 3 provinces?! Wow. That type of comment from Leinster fans justifies the lack of support for Leinster outside Leinster. It isn’t the team. It’s Leinster fans like you. Keep up the good work!
@David Gaffney: how is his comment justifiable? He calls out Leinster for being soft having a dig essentially saying they are all poshboys with no grit. I demonstrate they must have something about them to beat every other province. Which is a fact. I’d back any province in a final. The reason fans don’t back Leinster is because a large % Irish sports fans are toxic.
@Stephen Drake: want to lets us know which province you support and by how much Leinsters B team have beaten them over last 5 years?
@Stephen Drake: you need help.
@Patrick Waldron Healy: It must be what you say. It must be “because a large % Irish sports fans are toxic” that Leinster lacks support outside of Leinster. Therefore you are saying the a large % of fans outside Leinster are toxic. You just summed up everything inadvertently! Thanks for finally providing proof of the problem.
10 penalties in the first half for Leinster and no yellow card ?
@Darren Mullins: How many pens did Leinster give away in the second half without a yellow?
@Darren Mullins: Even Barnes knew some of his call were iffy; to add yellow cards to them would have bee way OTT. Besides, Leinster were never even warned after a stream of penalties and ‘new advantage’ calls between the 71st minute and FT.
Unfortunately he made a mistake for their second try. He should have kicked it to touch.
Amy chance we could start looking at Frawley as out back up out half now?!
Ross Byrne is a fine URC out half but isn’t at the races when it comes to big games
@GrassHopper: odd thing with Frawley. When he first burst onto the scene at 10 he gave away 2 cheap tries in two consecutive (or close anyway) games. Often wondered if that’s what stopped the Leinster management playing him at 10 cause he moved to Center not long after that. Seems like he could be an amazing 10. Love Ross Byrne but has has too many poor games at the top level.
It’s the hardest way to lose a final when they were so hotly tipped to win against a team decimated with injuries. Were the fan base too arrogant???? La Rochelle showed hunger from losing last year. The will not to lose again won out more than the will to win. It will make Leinster very dangerous next year.
Where is Chris Mc?
@Leonard Barry: where is Eoin Roche?
Chris Mc, where are you?
Ah we blew it big time. We had a full squad, tempature dropped to mid 20s, were red hot favourites, we even stood up to them at scrum time in the main. Blew it. Leinster will be a hurting team, dangerous next year.
@SPQH: Being red hot favourites wasn’t helpful. No Irish team, club or national team, appears to wear that well. La Rochelle used their underdog tag as motivation. It seems maybe La Rochelle looked for Leinster weaknesses to exploit, but perhaps Leinster thought their usual style of play would win out. La Rochelle had a defined game plan because of the multiple Leinster threats, Leinster seemed to have no game plan to address what many are saying as regards pack size etc.
@SPQH: that’ll be the most galling thing. Everything was set up for Leinster. All their players were fit and rested while LAR missing some key players after a bruising Top 14 while others were half fit. Ref also seemed to give a lot of 50/50 calls to Leinster during the game and Leinster could have had at least 2 yellow cards for repeat infringements in their 22 in that second half. Very difficult to get those circumstances in your favour every year
Won’t win, spending the end camped in your 22 like a youth team. Where did the senior team disappear too.
Baahaaaaaaaa Ladyboys ye weren’t good enough!