Leinster 41 Toulouse 22
Even by the standards of the blue machine, this was pretty impressive. Leinster quite simply reserved their biggest and best performance of the season for their biggest game of the campaign to date and against their best opponents.
The four-time winners swept aside the five-time winners in front of a mostly delirious 46,823 Aviva attendance to move within one game of earning their own fifth star back here in the final in three weeks’ time against the winners of Sunday’s semi-final between La Rochelle and Exeter.
A revenge mission against Ronan O’Gara’s reigning champions would be quite something.
Denied some key men in Johnny Sexton, Robbie Henshaw and James Lowe, others stepped in seamlessly and others still rose to the occasion and produced magnificent displays.
The foundation stones were the excellence of their pack, especially at lineout time, their superior discipline and their execution of the basics, not least in their carrying and, by and large, their work at the breakdown in generating rapid-fire ball despite the litany of Toulouse threats in the jackal.
Dan Sheehan and James Ryan had superb games and, as one suspected might be the case, in the backrow the outstanding two-try Jack Conan and tireless Josh van der Flier and Caelan Doris eclipsed their Toulouse counterparts.
Behind them, the magnificent Jamison Gibson-Park was a live wire, constantly making the right, rapid-fire decisions, probing the blindside, picking out the right man and setting the tempo.
Importantly for both Leinster and Ireland, Ross Byrne again ran the show with aplomb and assuredness, as well as producing another exhibition of world-class kicking. No matter the angle, he nailed all seven of his kicks, executed the launch plays and played close to the line. Garry Ringrose and Hugo Keenan were superb again.
Toulouse played their part, producing spells of superlative rugby, and the only reason it wasn’t the game of the season was because Leinster were simply so damned good.
They lost winger Matthis Lebel by the 16th minute, and therein lay the rub with opting for that 6-2 split, for this development limited their options thereafter. Ugo Mola and co opted to bring on Paul Graou at scrumhalf, with Antoine Dupont moving to outside centre, which dishevelled them a tad.
To move the world’s best scrumhalf from his least favoured position, and Ntamack from his, seemed excessive, and even more damningly they conceded two needless yellow cards, one of which might have been red. True to form, Leinster ruthlessly punished them with 28 unanswered points in those ensuing 20 minutes.
The tone for this pulsating game was set by one of those typically breathless starts that are now almost de rigueur when two elite sides meet.
After Byrne opened the scoring following probing work by Gibson-Park and Larmour, when Francois Cros didn’t roll away, Toulouse struck the biggest early blow.
Thomas Ramos became the game’s key figure, first executing a brilliant 50/22 to within 15 of the Leinster line. From the drive, the impressive Pita Ahki was launched and Jack Willis made inroads through Charlie Ngatai and Byrne, before Toulouse created numbers on the edge, where Ahki used a two-on-one to beat Gibsn-Park on his inside.
Ramos, naturally, landed the touchline conversion but after a second Byrne penalty, then undid his good work by first catching and jumping over the touchline to give Leinster the throw inside the Toulouse half, and then flapping down Gibson-Park’s blindside pass which would have released Jimmy O’Brien.
Within a minute, Leinster struck. Sheehan was stopped short of the line by Willis after springing off the maul as he does, and Jimmy O’Brien was nearly in by the corner flag, two phases later Gibson-Park fed Conan for a fine finish, bursting through Crow and Arnold.
Soon, a Toulouse attack was undone by Willis’ neck roll on van der Flier. How ill-advised. Cue penalty up the lineout and try, after Sheehan stepped Thibaud Flament to generate go-forward and Gibson-Park twice probed the blindside some more, skip-passing for van der Flier to release Conan up the touchline.
Conan drew the last man, Juan Cruz Mallia, by dummying back inside to van der Flier and sauntering over. Au revoir Monsieur Mallia.
[ As it Happened: Leinster 41 Toulouse 22 - Irish province into Champions Cup finalOpens in new window ]
Leinster appeared to have struck for a third time in Ramos’ absence after Ngatai won a jackal penalty and Sheehan was launched off the next lineout, but after sweeping left, right and left again, O’Brien appeared to have finished in the corner, but Mallia’s tackle did enough to force one foot into touch in goal.
Even after Ramos’ return, it was merely a stay of execution. From a Toulouse lineout, Mauvaka’s pass under pressure from Andrew Porter bounced off Willis invitingly for Sheehan who accelerated into free country, goose-stepping Dupont’s covering tackle and brushing through a fairly feeble attempt by Ramos.
Even a 27-7 first-half lead is no guarantee against a side like Toulouse and in a game like this. No one knew this better than Leinster, all the more so after Toulouse upped the tempo and scored from close-range through after a quick tap by Grau to link with Dupont to leave it 27-14 at the break – despite a Ngatai 50/22 which was not rewarded.
Toulouse came calling at the start of the second-half, turning down three to go to the corner and launch Ahki after the maul was held up, and Ngatai’s tackle to dislodge the ball from Mauvaka was an important moment, ultimately restricting the visitors to a Ramos penalty for a very questionable scrum penalty against Porter.
The game then pivoted, finally, on the ensuing Toulouse ruck from the restart on their own 22. As van der Flier sought to counter-ruck, not for the first time, Rodrigue Neti clearly saw him coming and simply lined him up and headbutted him in the neck, pushing up as he did so.
The assistant referee somehow missed it, but the TMO didn’t and after Wayne Barnes sought to see if there was foul play after the “head-on-head contact”, he somehow came to the conclusion that it was “not a deliberate act” and brandished a yellow card. Really? It sure looked it.
In any event, as the sun returned after a shower of rain, this galvanised home crowd and team alike. Sure enough, as sure as night follows day really, Byrne tapped to the corner, the imperious Ryan gathered and, oh so fittingly, van der Flier scored his sixth try of the competition in six appearances.
The manner in which Doris and Byrne fist-pumped the air in the direction of the crowd underlined the score’s meaning, and Byrne still calmed down his heartbeat to make it into another seven-pointer.
Toulouse, a man and 17 points behind, played catch-up, which only played into Leinster’s hands. Jason Jenkins finished from Luke McGrath’s pass, Doris’ superb clear-out from another Conan carry creating the opening, and that was that.
A try in overtime off a lineout maul for the previously, and strangely, anonymous Flament did not even belong in the consolation category. Toulouse had been filleted for the fourth time running by the blue machine, and for the fourth time here at this stage and this venue.
Déjà vu?
Scoring sequence: 5 mins Byrne pen 3-0; 9 mins Ahki try, Ramos con 3-7; 13 mins Byrne pen 6-7; 17 mins Conan try, Byrne con 13-7; 21 mins Conan try, Byrne con 20-7; 27 mins Sheehan try, Byrne con 27-7; 35 mins Meafou try, Ramos con 27-14; (half-time 27-14); 58 mins van der Flier try, Byrne con 34-17; 65 mins Jenkins try, Byrne con 41-17; 81 mins Willis try 41-22.
LEINSTER: Hugo Keenan; Jordan Larmour, Garry Ringrose, Charlie Ngatai, Jimmy O’Brien; Ross Byrne, Jamison Gibson-Park; Andrew Porter, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Furlong, Ross Molony, James Ryan (capt), Caelan Doris, Josh van der Flier, Jack Conan. Replacements: Ciarán Frawley for Ngatai (54 mins), Jason Jenkins for Molony (54 mins), Michael Ala’alatoa for Furlong (59 mins), Luke McGrath for Jamison-Park (61 mins), Ryan Baird for Conan (65 mins), John McKee for Sheehan, Cian Healy for Porter (both 68 mins), Harry Byrne for R Byrne (71 mins).
STADE TOULOUSAIN: Thomas Ramos; Juan Cruz Mallía, Pierre-Louis Barassi, Pita Ahki, Matthis Lebel; Romain Ntamack, Antoine Dupont (capt); Cyril Baille, Peato Mauvaka, Dorian Aldegheri, Richie Arnold, Emmanuel Meafou, Jack Willis, Thibaud Flament, Francois Cros. Replacements: Paul Graou for Barassi (15 mins), Julien Marchand for Mauvaka, Rodrigue Neti for Baille, Alexandre Roumat for Arnold (all 51 mins), David Ainu’u for Aldegheri (59 mins), Rynhardt Elstadt for Meafou, Alban Placines for Cros (both 65 mins), Baille for Flament (67 mins), Arthur Retiere for Mallia (69 mins).
Referee: Wayne Barnes (England)
