RUGBY:AS THE ecstatic Leinster players began cavorting and celebrating, and their fans simply went nuts, Seán O'Brien threw himself atop Jamie Heaslip.
Impromptu, the players formed a dancing circle before being interrupted for the staged trophy presentation and fireworks. But even as they deservedly milked the lap of honour you still had to pinch yourself. Did what just happened actually happen? As resurrections go, this was indeed biblical.
No, said a slightly stunned Isa Nacewa over half an hour later, he had “never” played in a match quite like it. “We will look back in 20 years and everyone will enjoy looking at that match.” Indeed it’s hard to think of a transformation on such a stunning scale and at such an exalted level.
To turn a 6-22 deficit into a 33-22 win eclipsed Bath’s previous record second half fight-back of 1997, when they overcame a nine-point deficit (15-6) to beat Brive 19-18 in Bordeaux. Perhaps the only comparable rise from the embers of defeat was the 1999 World Cup semi-final at Twickenham, when France threw caution to the wind and turned a 10-24 deficit against a Jonah Lomu-inspired All Blacks into a 43-31 win.
Never mind rugby, this was an epic comeback in any sporting context and if anybody in the Leinster machine recorded their ten-minute interval crisis management, they could release it and make a mint. Greg Feek having taken the pack through a DVD of their first-half scrum problems on his laptop, Jonny Sexton, sporting anorak that he is, had the presence of mind to cite Liverpool’s comeback from 3-0 down to Milan in the 2005 Champions League final in Istanbul during his animated rallying call.
Brian O’Driscoll described him as like a man possessed during the interval, and thereafter Sexton played like one too. Those of us hailing him as the best outhalf in Europe had been given the most compelling proof on the most perfect of stages.
Thus, this was the best final, best final comeback and the best individual performance in a final all wrapped up in one game. But for Sexton’s performance, on any anything resembling a normal day, Seán O’Brien would have walked off with the bubbly, though starting with the lap of honour, that was not in short supply.
Immense again, with Shane Jennings introduced at half-time to have a pronounced impact in defence, at the breakdown and as a link, O’Brien reverted to blindside and did his thing, battering through would-be Northampton tacklers like something out of a cartoon strip.
Along with Shane Horgan, he had been one of Leinster’s better performers in the first half, but then again you cannot compare the two halves in many respects, for neither Jennings nor any one else could have stemmed the first-half Northampton tide – more an avalanche really.
By dint of this famous comeback, Leinster have beaten the top three in both France and England. Their triumph brooks no argument and is the grandest of all Heineken Cups. But the most demanding route of all to a final counted for little come kick-off here, as Schmidt had conceded the previous Thursday when he began: “I think finals are two sets of 40 minutes.”
Little did we know. He’s a prophet as well as a quality coach and a nice bloke.
With this second Heineken Cup in three years (and fourth in six for the provinces along with a Grand Slam, all bar one clinched on Irish rugby’s happiest hunting ground of all), Leinster have become a Euro Superpower.
In turn, the last generals from the golden generation have medals to show for their labours. And as well as Brian O’Driscoll (dredging up an astonishing 20 minutes through the pain barrier), Gordon D’Arcy, Shane Horgan and Leo Cullen rose to the occasion, this was as much about the executive strand assuming their inheritance – Sexton, Jamie Heaslip, O’Brien and co.
Even in Life After Brian (and by rights the number 13 jersey should eventually retire with him), there might be a future.
At the start of last season Sexton had publicly stated that he sincerely hoped that O’Driscoll and his contemporaries weren’t happy with one Heineken Cup, because he certainly wasn’t. And, as Schmidt tellingly revealed in the aftermath of Saturday’s win, when he was first being sounded out for the job to inherit Michael Cheika’s rich but demanding legacy, he met with Leo Cullen and Sexton in the Burlington Hotel before Christmas.
“My first impression of Johnny was one of the reasons why I came. I met Johnny with Leo and I remember he said to me ‘look I think you can bring something we want’. I said ‘look, you know, I’m not sure, I haven’t really done the job before, I’m not sure about driving the group forward’. And he goes ‘ah don’t worry about that, we’ll do that. You just give us the stuff we think we need and we’ll drive the boys forward, we’ll motivate them and keep them on the straight and narrow’. He struck me as an incredibly mature young man, an incredibly driven young man. I already knew he was a very good player, I’d seen enough of him.”
Success tends to follow the understated and modest Schmidt around, and this even topped the Ranfury Shield and equally historic Bouclier de Brennus he won with Bay of Plenty and Clermont Auvernge.
“Ah look, just seeing the crowd today, just looking at them all and the photos that were going off; just phenomenal, phenomenal. I mean the Bouclier de Brennus last year, the Ranfury Shield that we won for the first time ever, in 100 years of playing with Bay of Plenty was fantastic. Yeah, but look, I think this tops it; particularly to come where we were on a massive stage like this. I think I’ll have a drink tonight.”
Sexton and co weren’t the only ones feeling pretty elated with life on Saturday evening. The country may be on its knees, but had there been a Richter scale measuring cumulative delight it would have registered higher than most places on the planet circa 6.40pm or thereabouts on Saturday evening, from Cardiff to Dublin. And, indeed, beyond the pale.
