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Three talking points as Leinster and Toulouse name cup final teams
By Liam Heagney
With the confirmation on Friday of the respective match day 23s, all is now in readiness for Saturday’s heavyweight Investec Champions Cup final in London.
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In the blue corner, we have Leinster, the four-time champions from Ireland who are looking to strike gold following defeats in the 2022 Marseille and 2023 Dublin finals to La Rochelle.
Toulouse, meanwhile, occupy the red corner and they are heading to Tottenham confident of adding a sixth star to their jersey – and a first since their 2021 title win over La Rochelle at Twickenham.
Here, RugbyPass sizes up some of the major team selection talking points:
Saving Ryan for later
The legendary Brian O’Driscoll got the mathematics correct when asked by RugbyPass in midweek to predict the number of changes Leo Cullen would make to his Leinster XV. He said there would be three, which there were.
However, while he was spot on in suggesting that the fit-again Hugo Keenan would take over at full-back from Ciaran Frawley and that the chopper Will Connors would supplant Josh van der Flier as the starting flanker, he was blindsided by the outcome at lock.
James Ryan played the full 80 for Leinster last weekend in his first match since a training ground bicep injury with Ireland in early March. Having skippered the club in last year’s final, the expectation was that he would come in to start in place of Ross Molony.
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That switch hasn’t happened. Instead, Jason Jenkins has been given the No4 jersey with Ryan held in reserve even though Champions Cup starts haven’t been frequent for the South African international.
At Munster, he was a sub in all four 2021/22 appearances and he also subbed in four of his five runs last term after his switch to Leinster.
The Jacques Nienaber influence since his late November arrival at Leinster, though, has seen an improvement in his fellow countryman’s fortunes.
Having started last month’s quarter-final win over La Rochelle, he has now been recalled to the XV to make a fourth start in seven Champions Cup games this season. It’s a gamble but one Leinster have willingly taken.
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The Brennan factor
Trevor Brennan famously had the last laugh at Matt Williams’ Leinster in the early noughties, falling down the pecking order at the Irish province and going on to win the Heineken Cup with Toulouse at the first attempt.
All the chat that 2002/23 season was about the final being staged at Lansdowne Road, providing Leinster – and Munster – every incentive to work their way through to a home final.
There was no all-Irish decider though as Toulouse, with the firebrand Brennan lighting up their sense of mischief, picked off Munster in the semi-finals in France the day before Perpignan came to Dublin to ambush Williams’ running-on-quicksand Leinster.
Brennan revelled in the resulting all-French final, even jumping into a police car with the trophy to get to the airport after a celebration at Kiely’s, the Donnybrook pub that was the premier watering hole at the time for Leinster fans.
Twenty-one years on from that memorable escapade, Brennan’s son Joshua will now look to play spoilsport having been named on the Toulouse bench for this Saturday’s latest final.
The forward is the second cab off the rank of a family that stayed on in the Toulouse area after dad’s playing career finished.
The 25-year-old Daniel is currently propping for Brive in Pro D2 having started at the Toulouse academy before a switch to Montpellier.
Meanwhile, Joshua, who is three years younger, has made the grade at his father’s old club and is now poised for his 21st appearance of this season having been chosen in the No20 jersey ahead of Mathis Castro-Ferreira, the back-rower who subbed the last day against Harlequins.
Brennan has represented France U20s and his inclusion versus Leinster has him poised to play against his second Irish province in the space of four months as he was a used sub in the January win over Ulster in Belfast.
With Toulouse opting for a five/three forwards/backs split on their bench compared to Leinster’s six/two divide, Brennan’s positional flexibility could be important. Five of his 11 Top 14 starts this term have been at lock, with six more coming at openside.
Six/two versus five/three divide
The difference in the respective bench formats is intriguing. Having gone with a six/two split to dethrone La Rochelle in the quarter-final, Leinster reverted to five/three for their semi-final with Northampton but they have now gone back to a six/two divide for the final in contrast to Toulouse’s five/three selection.
Having an additional forward was never a Leinster tactic in the Cullen/Stuart Lancaster era – which produced a title in 2018 – but Cullen has had his head turned by Nienaber and his famed South African ‘bomb squad’ strategy from the Rugby World Cup.
Ryan, Jack Conan, and van der Flier are quite the combination to bring into the final fray off the bench separate from their three front row reserves.
The signal is clear – the now more physically-minded Leinster are looking to outmuscle opposition and defend better compared to previous finals when attacking creativity was at the core of their game plan.
Look at how they brilliantly blitzed La Rochelle in last year’s opening quarter and how they also led from the front for most of the 2022 decider, sidestepping collisions rather than willingly embracing them before getting pipped by late, late scores.
There is an argument that Leinster’s quality of passing and attacking lines of running aren’t as polished this season with so much energy being expended on learning the mechanics of the Nienaber blitz defence.
The key against Toulouse is whether they can now turn this defence into enough of an attacking weapon to make the critical winning difference on the scoreboard. Going six/two on their bench is a bold tactic aimed at making that happen.
2022 SF – Leinster ?
2023 SF – Leinster ?
2024 Final…?@leinsterrugby & @StadeToulousain have so much recent history ?#InvestecChampionsCup #ThrowbackThursday pic.twitter.com/18jWOkgOCY— Investec Champions Cup (@ChampionsCup) May 23, 2024
