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Ronan O'Gara on Leinster’s ‘comfort zone’ contributing to yet another final loss

Ronan O'Gara and Leo Cullen share a joke pre-game (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

With a third European Champions Cup final loss in a row, Leinster now have the unenviable task of self-reflecting on what went wrong and why they are struggling to get over the line when it comes to the big moments.

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Scores were tied 15-15 at full time in London but Toulouse scored first in the first period of extra time and then, while masterfully marshalled by the brilliant Antoine Dupont, they never looked liked losing and ultimately claimed another famous title with the 31-22 victory at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Dupont is being hailed as the best player of a generation due to his massive impact on the game in both attack and defence.

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The concern now for Leinster is that the last time they lifted the trophy was in the 2017-2018 season and now have to contend with yet another disappointing loss on the big stage.

La Rochelle head coach Ronan O’Gara has reflected on the third-consecutive loss, citing their lack of away form as a possible factor.

“When you play the best Top 14 team and you play them in a neutral venue… Leinster, so many of their games are either at home or in the Aviva,” he told Off The Ball.

“They might play a big game or two a year out of that, which doesn’t help them at all, I don’t think, when it comes to the really tough games.

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“They have enough class for all those games, it’s just when it comes to a team that are as good as them, how do they continuously learn from coming up short?

O’Gara also feels that tactics, perhaps with the strong influence of former Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber, are what prevented them from making more inroads on attack.

“I suppose maybe the fact that Leinster weren’t ‘on’ in attack and the fact that maybe – as all great teams do – they build their form enough for winning on a defence, and you can see that Leinster have given a lot of time to that.

“With the, whatever, 160 minutes of training time during the week, what are you prioritising? What are you going after?

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“And to say you’re actually going after everything, it doesn’t work like that, because it’s DNA of South Africa, whose their coach – Nienaber – of course you respect this guy, he comes in, it’s kick pressure and it’s tackle for your life and defend for your family, so that’s what they did.

Match Summary

5
Penalty Goals
8
1
Tries
1
1
Conversions
1
0
Drop Goals
0
184
Carries
113
5
Line Breaks
5
18
Turnovers Lost
16
8
Turnovers Won
12

On the question of there being a danger that three final losses in a row might make it really difficult to bounce back from.

“You have to have absolute, huge admiration for getting to three finals. The weak people would be inclined to go “Well they bottle it, they can’t get over the line”. I wouldn’t give that view. I think they’re the most consistent team. They also have the most consistent resources in the fact that a lot of them play for Ireland and there’s such cohesion in that team that there is a right to ask the question, ‘Why aren’t they getting over the line?’.

“They’re bringing in Jordie Barrett and RG Snyman, two world class players which will make them even harder to beat. I would be a firm believer in that if you keep knocking at the door and keep your values right and keep showing up, you’ll kick the door down. And I think this team is very close.

“But there is also a fear that a man, or a woman, can only take so much. I would be very, very low today if I was involved in that group who had gone to three finals, because losing in a final is ten times the hurt of losing in a quarter or a semi, because you’re all in.

“But if you multiply that season by season, it’s beyond thinkable.”

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Comments

13 Comments
R
Roger 205 days ago

There were several instances where the defensive strategy of kicking for 3 points as opposed to the attacking strategy of doing a lineout-rolling maul were not taken. It was a lack of attack that was the problem. It was knowing how to attack.

If you think of the World Cup Semi Final and Final last year, had the Springboks tried some rolling mauls for points it might not have paid off. But we see and know from traditional RWC Playoffs the best defense is matched by good goal kicking.
Win penalties, kick for poles. It's amazing how much can be accumulated through kicks.

So no I wouldn't blame Nienaber for that. Best defense in the competition is what most often wins high stake play-off games.
It was those fine margin decisions. “Kick for goal, kick to the corner?”
If they of their three attempts at tries had opted for one less corner and one more goal kick, that would have got them over the line.

j
john 205 days ago

Leinster went to corner wher they should have taken, a kick for 3 points they left 12 point behind in the first half. point make prizes

J
Jeff 205 days ago

Leinster have regressed since Nienaber joined.

F
Flankly 205 days ago

Nienaber said it would take time. Of course it would.

They will sharpen up their attack, especially transition attack from their much more aggressive defence. The tries will come and the wins will come. I would not bet against Leinster next season.

E
Ed the Duck 205 days ago

O’Driscoll made exactly the same point on how Leinster have lost an edge in attack since Lancaster left and being cosseted in the Aviva undoubtedly leaves them short of experience travelling against the very best.

However massive credit has to go to Matt Carley, he was superb. Leinster just didn’t benefit from the marginal calls that consistently go their way. It was a class performance to watch from both teams and the ref!

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JW 2 hours ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

Like I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.


Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about trying to make so the worst teams in it are not giving up when they are so far off the pace that we get really bad scorelines (when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together). I know it's not realistic to think those same exact teams are going to be competitive with a different model but I am inclined to think more competitive teams make it in with another modem. It's a catch 22 of course, you want teams to fight to be there next year, but they don't want to be there next year when theres less interest in it because the results are less interesting than league ones. If you ensure the best 20 possible make it somehow (say currently) each year they quickly change focus when things aren't going well enough and again interest dies. Will you're approach gradually work overtime? With the approach of the French league were a top 6 mega rich Premier League type club system might develop, maybe it will? But what of a model like Englands were its fairly competitive top 8 but orders or performances can jump around quite easily one year to the next? If the England sides are strong comparatively to the rest do they still remain in EPCR despite not consistently dominating in their own league?


So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).


You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.


I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?

120 Go to comments
f
fl 5 hours ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

"Right, so even if they were the 4 worst teams in Champions Cup, you'd still have them back by default?"

I think (i) this would literally never happen, (ii) it technically couldn't quite happen, given at least 1 team would qualify via the challenge cup, so if the actual worst team in the CC qualified it would have to be because they did really well after being knocked down to the challenge cup.

But the 13th-15th teams could qualify and to be fair I didn't think about this as a possibility. I don't think a team should be able to qualify via the Champions Cup if they finish last in their group.


Overall though I like my idea best because my thinking is, each league should get a few qualification spots, and then the rest of the spots should go to the next best teams who have proven an ability to be competitive in the champions cup. The elite French clubs generally make up the bulk of the semi-final spots, but that doesn't (necessarily) mean that the 5th-8th best French clubs would be competitive in a slimmed down champions cup. The CC is always going to be really great competition from the semis onwards, but the issue is that there are some pretty poor showings in the earlier rounds. Reducing the number of teams would help a little bit, but we could improve things further by (i) ensuring that the on-paper "worst" teams in the competition have a track record of performing well in the CC, and (ii) by incentivising teams to prioritise the competition. Teams that have a chance to win the whole thing will always be incentivised to do that, but my system would incentivise teams with no chance of making the final to at least try to win a few group stage matches.


"I'm afraid to say"

Its christmas time; there's no need to be afraid!

120 Go to comments
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