Big gamble pays off for rampant Leinster

Well, that’s a fiver down the pan. Offered the attractive odds of reigning champions La Rochelle to stay within seven points of Leinster, we simply couldn’t resist.

Picking the teams to go on the weekly accumulator is a highlight of the working week in this parish. This, we believed, was a cert.

Not for the first time a sure thing — supported in this case by the late withdrawal of Hugo Keenan — turned out to be a mile off the mark. As James Lowe latched onto the beautifully judged pick pass by Robbie Henshaw for his second try, it was like the history between these clubs was makey-up. The final quarter was about to start and Leinster were out of sight.

They gambled with their ‘big is beautiful’ selection and it worked perfectly. They resolved to rob La Rochelle of time and space and did that very well too. Their next challenge in this competition — their 15th semi-final — is to cross the river and, hopefully, put enough bums on seats to make Croke Park feel like it did when they were last there, against Munster in 2009.

The fitness of Keenan will be high on the agenda for Leo Cullen but otherwise his injury count wasn’t obviously an issue, and his squad morale is an energy generator that doesn’t harm the environment. All good then.

So why were folks so nervous? Sometimes it goes like this: a brutal run of results against your bogey team gets turned around and motors off in the other direction. It helps if the driver has a man of the match performance, which is exactly what happened here for Ross Byrne.

But not straight off the bat. We had to wait for the second quarter before arriving at a significant crossroads. In the 23rd minute ref Karl Dickson sent upstairs a muddled case to see if Gibson-Park had managed to hold off two defenders to get the ball down for a try. If it came back positive then the formality of the extras would put the home side 17-3 up. If not then we’d continue at 10-3.

The knock-back looked fair enough, and better still if you had made the journey from France’s Atlantic coast when a few minutes later the scoreboard had shifted to 13-6 in Leinster’s favour. The good news for Ronan O’Gara was not that his team were going well — they weren’t — but Leinster’s capacity to concede immediately after scoring was like an unexpected tax on their earnings. Twice in succession was careless.

The next major junction was reached as the first half slipped into overtime. It was a period of equal pressure: Leinster were under the cosh and doing well to keep the French at bay; La Rochelle were passing up shots on goal in search of the seven points that would take them back into the game on a 10-point deficit. They knew that if it didn’t work out it would have given the home side a huge psychological lift to go with the positive look on their ledger. Louis Penverne’s try — Leinster were punished for competing in the air rather than organising on the ground — was exactly what Gregory Alldritt’s boys were after. They were back on track.

What had unfolded in between those major pivotal points had been a lot better for Leinster. The selection of Will Connors was paying off in chop tackles; Byrne’s ability to conquer the swirling wind was hugely impressive; Gibson-Park was doing what Gibson Park does — he got a standing ovation when replaced by Luke McGrath on the run-in; and James Lowe was in similar vein. They contributed a try each in that half, a fair enough reflection of the period where they had shown huge appetite for the combat. That’s La Rochelle’s stock in trade, so high on their agenda was to engineer mauls in close.

You can’t do that from your own half, which is where they started the second period. Andrew Porter won a poaching penalty which made matters worse for them, eventually opening up the space for Ryan Baird to score. As Byrne stood over the tee the medics were preparing to remove Tawera Kerr-Barlow with a head injury. To top it off, Antoine Hastoy put the restart out on the full.

Even allowing for an ability to claw their way out of the grave in this fixture, the scoreboard read 30-13. It smelt like a cremation. To add some colour to the scene the red headgear of Josh van der Flier was visible on the touchline. It was all plain sailing from there.

And now? It is inescapable that Leinster have underachieved since prevailing in the down-for-the-day rain in Bilbao in 2018. When we dried out after San Memes lots of us figured it would be the start of another run, maybe even with the same sure-footedness of the three in four years canter that started under Michael Cheika and gathered pace with Joe Schmidt.

The upside is they have remained very competitive despite the transition: only three of this side were starters back then. It would have been five if Garry Ringrose and James Ryan were fit, but either way Leinster have survived the changes without falling over the edge. The downside is survival is a given for this brand. It’s all about being top of the podium. In three weeks they can put themselves back in that frame.

Scorers -— Leinster: J Lowe 2 tries; J Gibson-Park, R Baird, D Sheehan try each; R Byrne 3 pens, 3 cons. La Rochelle: L Penverne try; A Hastoy 2 pens, 1 con.

Leinster: H Keenan; J Larmour, R Henshaw, J Osborne, J Lowe; R Byrne (H Byrne 63), J Gibson-Park; A Porter (M Milne 59), D Sheehan (R Kelleher 59), T Furlong (M Ala’alatoa 59), J McCarthy, J Jenkins (R Molony 51), R Baird, C Doris (capt) (J Conan 71), W Connors (J van der Flier 49).

La Rochelle: D Leyds (I West h-t); J Nowell, UJ Seuteni, J Danty, T Thomas; A Hastoy, T Kerr-Barlow (T Iiribaren 44); L Penverne (A Kaddouri 53), T Latu (Q Lespiaucq-Brettes 53), U Atonio (J Sclavi 53), U Dillane, W Skelton (T Lavault 66), J Cancoriet (P Boudehent 64), G Alldritt (capt), L Botea (Y Tanga 64)

Referee: K Dickson (England).