Johnny Watterson/Post-match quotes:The Lions finally lacked a roar. Big cats Leinster entered the arena, looked the part and in anticipation of a European Cup final drew 37,800 to the Lansdowne den.

On such occasions the animal needs to strut with menace and assurance. The body language must ooze aggression, the noise volume turns up and the claws flash.

At the end, Matt Williams, Denis Hickie and Reggie Corrigan looked more like what the cat dragged in than the unbeaten kings of the rugby jungle. But with the breadth of their flimsy performance came clarity and openness. There was little to hide behind and even after a frustrating day of disrupted scrums and a fractured game, the blame was kept within the confines of the team. But no-one could find the words and as the players and coach raked over the coals they could merely describe what happened and not fully explain it.

"In our line-out and our scrum we weren't getting the ball for set play," said Williams.

"Then they had 15 defenders the whole time, therefore our platform and ability to get into the game was greatly reduced. Twice in the game we got a chance to run off our scrums and from one of them we got a try.

"We've been to big games before. There are nerves before every big game but I wouldn't use that as an excuse. It was our biggest game of the year and the one day we didn't really perform. I wouldn't think we were too confident either. There was none of that talk during the week. Maybe from the press, not from us. It was about being imprecise, not precise like we usually are."

Hickie, looking tired and wan, spoke of frustration and helplessness. It was the classic bad dream where you run but can't move, reach for things within grasp but are unable to touch them.

"It was a game that wanted to be taken by the scruff of the neck and we didn't do that," he said. "Even when they scored the try there was still time to get back at them. I think if we'd been able to get a score ahead of them it was one of those games that we would have been able to shut out.

"It's dangerous to assume that because the draw was a certain way and that there was always a potential final in Dublin that you'd a right to be in that final . . . that was the kind of talk during the week from a lot of quarters, that because of the way the draw was, it was tailor-made for us to be in the final. When we look back on this and if we our honest with ourselves we'll think that a place in the final wouldn't have been beyond us and we didn't take the opportunity. But our performance wasn't down to nerves or expectations, we just didn't play well enough."

French number eight Phil Murphy, who was educated at Methody and played Irish schools, used the underdog status as an energiser. Murphy admitted to being the only French player who preferred playing the all-French final in Dublin's "mythical stadium".

"We knew we had to weather the storm and defend our line. Three-nil at half-time was ideal for us. That is nothing in modern rugby," he said. "We spent the entire Heineken Cup as underdogs. We weren't supposed to come out of our pool. We did. We weren't supposed to win at Llanelli. We did. 40,000 thought we'd lose today and about 200 fans plus the team thought we'd win. Yes we were penalised in the scrum. Nigel (Williams, referee) said at half time that we were the stronger scrum but we were pushing up. In the French league coming up would be allowed."

Corrigan disagreed. "There is nothing you can do if your opposition is just standing up on every scrum," said Corrigan. "What we did do was go to the referee and make a point to him that free kicks were useless to us and that we had a platform in the scrum and we wanted to use that platform to run from.

"I pointed out to him that giving us free kicks constantly was actually a disadvantage to us, not an advantage. But it just continued anyway. We were quite obviously the stronger scrum and they took measures to get out of it.

"We were fully aware of everything that they would do. We had a talk with the referee before the game and pointed that out to him and he was fully aware of it. But I'm not saying that was the reason we lost the game. We didn't play well enough. There is no other way around it."