RUGBY:THE REIGN wasn't supposed to end like this. Michael Cheika, along with Kurt McQuilkin and Alan Gaffney, leave Leinster in far better state than when he arrived, with a hard-nosed professionalism and culture which has become more player-driven. Yet they head off into various sunsets without the legacy of a third major trophy in three years and with Leinster also facing an uncertain future.
So, after making off with all the booty last season (Grand Slam/Six Nations/Triple Crown, Heineken Cup, Magners League and Churchill Cup) the Irish trophy cabinet is bare and only Tommy Bowe and serial trophy winner Geordan Murphy will have winner’s medals to crow about when the Irish squad assemble today.
The margins were close, three wins out of five in the Six Nations, two Euro semi-finalists and two Celtic semi-finalists plus a finalist, but the margins between success and failure are tiny and close doesn’t win the watch.
To the Ospreys a third league title, which comes (not entirely without coincidence) a week after Cardiff put it up to them by becoming the first Welsh region to win a European trophy.
Ultimately, this was a slightly stale and weary Leinster effort which couldn’t reproduce the edge which invariably came with facing Munster a fortnight before. With tiredness comes impatience, and with their impatience came imprecision. Hence this was a very untypical Leinster performance, and not a fitting finale to the Cheika era, although it was in the manner in which they hung in there despite not playing well and finishing with a patchwork pack.
“It wasn’t great (losing Kevin McLaughlin, Stephen Keogh and Shane Jennings) but that’s the way it goes sometimes in footie,” said Cheika, for whom this defeat will haunt his summer. “The backrow changes don’t make people drop the ball. The guys that came on did their best. We showed lots of heart because we stayed in the game when we weren’t playing well. We couldn’t get the try to get past them and that’s the way it works out.”
Honest as ever to the bitter end, the departing Leinster coach admitted: “The best team won, most definitely. They took their opportunities when they came. We know that we can do it but today we didn’t bring our A game when we needed to bring it.”
Perhaps this defeat can even serve as a timely nudge in the ribs to the IRFU and its secretive but all powerful Players Advisory Group, especially regarding the evident need to loosen the limitations on overseas’ players (which Cheika has implored them to do), but one doubts it.
Leinster’s squad/bench has looked very thin in the seasonal run-in, and here they were obliged to chase the game for the last 13 minutes with a pack containing three locks and two hookers. Their backrow consisted of a lock, a number eight and a hooker, against an Ospreys trio that could afford to take off its Trojan captain and yet finish with three All Blacks.
The disappointment would have been more acute for not affording Malcolm O’Kelly, Girvan Dempsey and Bernard Jackman a more fitting finale as well, and there were some poignant moments as O’Kelly (who had another fine game) led a farewell lap of honour at Cheika’s behest and players embraced their departing team-mates.
“It’s (been) an emotional couple of days. It feels bad now, it feels pretty terrible,” said Jennings, who tried to take consolation in a generally positive season despite lacking any silverware to show for it, but then listed all the departures, culminating in Cheika.
“He’s instilled a culture here that wasn’t here before and he deserves a lot of credit for that. He won’t take the credit, he’ll pass it on to his staff and all that. But he has worked harder than anyone else, he’s first in and last out, and it’s a good way to show an example. He deserves a lot of credit and I think Stade are getting a very good coach and a good guy.”
That they are.
