RUGBY HEINEKEN CUP FINAL Leinster v Northampton:ONE TO go. Almost there. And if they are to do it, Leinster will certainly have merited the title of simply the best team in Europe.
Having overcome the crème de la crème of the Top 14 by completing a treble over the current top three, they will have to complete a similar treble over the Premiership’s finest in the Heineken Cup final in Cardiff on May 21st.
Northampton’s juggernaut pack and cutting edge put Perpignan to the sword in Milton Keynes yesterday by 23-7 and, like Leinster, the swaggering Saints are seeking to win a second Heineken Cup and a league-Cup double. They are also one game away from becoming the first team to go through the competition unbeaten since the 20-team format was adopted in 1997-98.
In truth, yesterday’s semi-final was a bloodless coup compared to the thriller in the Aviva on Saturday, a classy game contested by two classy outfits and a high-octane game of high intensity – Cedric Heymans compared it to the latter stages of a World Cup.
Once again, Leinster looked like a superbly coached and driven side which, underpinned by a core of high-achieving, experienced players, has an unyielding belief in each other and what they’re doing.
There is the vintage members of the golden generation – Gordon D’Arcy (eking out yardage and breaks when there scarcely seemed room to breathe), Brian O’Driscoll (cometh the hour, cometh the man again) and Shane Horgan (awesome in the air).
Then there are also the Dogs of War in Leo Cullen, who led the side outstandingly, and that other venerable warhorse Nathan Hines.
“The last one is always the most satisfying, but that one more than others,” admitted Joe Schmidt of his best win yet as Leinster coach. “After the Leicester game, not one guy celebrated. There was a hunger there that that wasn’t enough. I think I saw a couple of guys lift their arms today.
“That’s probably a measure of how tough that was and how delighted we were to get through it. But the players are driven to go one more step. We’re there with a chance. It’s so tough to get back there you don’t want to waste the opportunity, and I know that there’s some real resolve there.
“They left a few of our guys in disrepair and we’ve got a six-day turnaround for Glasgow on Friday night, so it’s glue and sticking-plaster again, but we know at most that there can only be four games left. We’ll fight tooth and nail to compete in all four of those.”
Mutual respect underpinned the day, and throughout it all Toulouse also conducted themselves with the class you expect of them. Backs coach Jean-Baptiste Elissalde observed, “I don’t think there is another team in Europe playing at the level of Leinster”, while Guy Noves spoke eloquently and at length, thanking the officials and even the attendant media, while heaping praise on both teams.
“We fell to a team better than us,” he conceded generously. “In every sense they deserve their victory. No more to be said about that. I recall certain cup matches that I lost that left a bitter taste, where I felt I’d been the victim of incoherent decisions. Here I have regrets, but I feel the better team won.”
