Rugby – Reaction:Brian O'Driscoll has urged Leinster to accept their reign as European champions is over as quickly as possible and seek consolation in the Magners League.
The patched-up Heineken Cup holders were dumped out of the competition with a 26-16 defeat by favourites Toulouse in yesterday’s semi-final at Le Stadium.
Little comfort was taken from the knowledge they had gone down fighting, instead they departed France frustrated at having failed to do themselves justice.
The Magners League is their only remaining chance of silverware - they top the table with one match left before the play-offs - and for O’Driscoll that offers some solace after their European heartache.
“You get used to the ring of being European champions but someone else is going to have the tag now and that’s a disappointment,” said the Ireland captain.
“We’ve worked hard and have fallen short but there’s still the Magners League so we have to take this disappointment and move on.
“We talked about being in the Heineken Cup final but that’s not going to happen so we’ll have to make do with attempting to win the Magners League.”
The match was finely poised at 9-9 until Toulouse ran in two tries in quick succession, the first when Yannick Jauzion crashed over in the 56th minute.
Man of the match David Skrela danced through Leinster’s midfield shortly after to deliver the mortal blow.
Jamie Heaslip dived in at the corner but the fightback was short-lived and Leinster were later forced to begin the inquest into the disintegration of their scrum.
They were annihilated at the set-piece and had to feed off scraps as a result.
“They’re such small margins at this level. We didn’t take an opportunity in the first half when Eoin Reddan when spilled it over the line,” added O’Driscoll.
“That could have been a seven-pointer and then they scored two quick tries in the second half to get their tails up.
“That’s the Toulouse that the crowd get behind and they become a very difficult side to beat when they play like that.
“Like Ireland, we try to attack off first phase but didn’t quite get the platform. I don’t know why we struggled so much at the scrum.
“The scrum wasn’t what we planned but we’ve won games off platforms that weren’t so good in the past.
“We win and lose as a team and as backs we made some decisions and errors in defence.”
Captain Leo Cullen joined O’Driscoll in attempting to rally the troops for what is left of the season.
“We’ve got a game against Edinburgh and we need to try and secure a home semi-final and push on from there,” said Cullen.
“It would be sad if we didn’t come away with anything from this season because we’ve put a lot of work in.
“We’ve got to see how we react to such a big loss and there is still plenty to play for.
“There are potentially three games left this season and we want to win all of them.”