Pretenders seem more at ease with themselves

THE CONTRAST could hardly have been starker. Amid the milling ground staff and food outlets being set up, Ulster arrived early and larked and joked on the main Twickenham pitch.

Even Brian McLaughlin was putting drop goals between the posts. No one was evicted. As they could have been having a kickabout on a beach, they weren’t doing anything worth hiding.

Leinster arrived late and the noise levels were vastly reduced. In a more sombre mood, about 10 of their squad wore yellow bibs in a defensive drill for the first-choice XV, save for Brian O’Driscoll, Seán O’Brien and, as ever, Brad Thorn, who were doing their own thing.

When you’re 37 and on the verge of an historic treble of World Cup, Super 14 and Heineken Cup, having played almost 450 first-class matches and the oldest player to play in both a World Cup final and a Heineken Cup final (and in the same season!), you know your own body better than anyone.

There appear to be remaining concerns about them and at scrumhalf, where it was noticeable that the travelling third scrumhalf John Cooney slotted in instead of Isaac Boss (named on the bench again) on the sub attacking team for the aforementioned drill.

Perhaps all this explained their comparative tetchiness.

Although Joe Schmidt confirmed that all would be patched up and ready to go come 5pm today, all the various bumps and bruises had “compromised our preparation more. It hasn’t been ideal but let’s hope the performance can be”.

The League’s decision to make Leinster play their Rabo Pro12 semi-final seven days ago rather than eight still rankled.

Whereas the Ulster team picked itself, Schmidt had one or two desperately close calls; uppermost amongst them, he admitted, being Kevin McLaughlin in the backrow instead of Shane Jennings. The latter was introduced for McLaughlin at half-time in last season’s final, at which point Leinster trailed 22-6 to Northampton after a nervous, error-strewn first-half before coming through 33-22.

That can’t have been an easy conversation. Apart from the obvious threat posed by Ulster’s lineout, part of the coach’s rationale was what Jennings “brings to the back end of the game as well. There’s a little bit of strategy to it and bad luck for Jenno”.

Reflecting on their favourites’ status last year, Schmidt said: “I don’t think that kind of helped us. I do think there’s comfort in being the underdogs. But if you can’t live with the pressure maybe you don’t deserve that tag. We’ve worked hard to earn that tag, but come the kick-off it doesn’t really matter.”

Contesting Ulster’s first final in 13 years, Rory Best was not surprised as to how relaxed his team-mates were.

“We’re very well prepared mentally for this build-up. Things have gone well for us; we’ve had two weeks to build into this game and we feel we’re very well prepared. We can relax and wait for the game because we know we’re in a good place,” he said.

But, as his captain Johann Muller noted, it’s one thing being relaxed before the game. “As Johann said, it will be very different tomorrow morning,” said Best. “The morning of a big game is always different; you can be as relaxed as you want leading into it but tomorrow morning there will be nerves.

“This is why you play rugby, for these massive games. You need to embrace every second of that because unfortunately, it doesn’t last forever.”