Subscriber OnlyRugbyOn Rugby

Gerry Thornley: Leinster shackled Will Skelton, putting the narrative about physicality to bed

No shortage of physicality or character from Leo Cullen’s side in La Rochelle as they ground out satisfying result in demanding conditions

James Ryan celebrates following Leinster's victory over La Rochelle at Stade Marcel Deflandre. No one did more to limit Will Skelton’s impact than Ryan, in tandem with an inspirational Ryan Baird. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho
James Ryan celebrates following Leinster's victory over La Rochelle at Stade Marcel Deflandre. No one did more to limit Will Skelton’s impact than Ryan, in tandem with an inspirational Ryan Baird. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho

The handiest or most popular narrative around Leinster – and many good judges subscribe to it – is that they’ve lacked the physicality to trade blows with the sheer size and brute force of their bêtes noires, La Rochelle and before them Saracens – with Will Skelton being the common ingredient. Or maybe even the character.

So where does that theory stand now, after getting down and dirty in the rain-soaked Stade Marcel Deflandre to beat the back-to-back champions?

While missing Grégory Alldritt, Ronan O’Gara named 12 of last May’s starting XV, including all their man mountains, Skelton, Uini Atonio, Levani Botia and Jonathan Danty at full throttle, and the gargantuan Georges-Henri Colombe on the bench.

To repeated and thunderous chanting of ‘Ici. Ici. C’est La Rochelle!” the home side came out firing brimstone and there were shades of Ireland withstanding a similar physical barrage by the Springboks in Paris in those almost wild early exchanges – a win which also dispelled the narrative.

READ MORE

Leinster had five changes, losing the physicality of Tadhg Furlong and James Lowe, while Jack Conan was also ruled out. True, Joe McCarthy started and Will Connors proved a particularly clever pick, and may well have been influenced by Jacques Nienaber.

Whatever Nienaber’s influence in his first two weeks, this start will swell belief in him and within the squad. Interestingly, though, neither he nor Rassie Erasmus subscribed to the “media narrative” that Irish or Leinster were physically smaller. Nor does Leo Cullen.

In any event, save for Michael Ala’alatoa and Jamison Gibson-Park, this was an entirely home-grown team, even if they had the oomph of Jason Jenkins and Charlie Ngatai off the bench.

Granted, McCarthy is a rare Irish rugby beast and Leinster were unlucky that injuries stalled his progress last season. But they were even more unfortunate to lose James Ryan by the half-hour mark in last May’s final when leading by 23-7 due to a head knock, ironically after driving Skelton back in the tackle. Until that point no one had done more to negate Skelton’s influence than Ryan.

It says much about McCarthy’s performance that Jenkins wasn’t introduced for him until the 75th minute on Sunday, albeit he’d had a 10-minute breather after that 12th minute all-in scrap when Leinster gave as good as they got and fittingly on their own line.

La Rochelle's Jules Favre is tackled by Leinster's Caelan Doris during the Champions Cup clash at the Stade Marcel Deflandre, La Rochelle. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho
La Rochelle's Jules Favre is tackled by Leinster's Caelan Doris during the Champions Cup clash at the Stade Marcel Deflandre, La Rochelle. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho

But critically this time Ryan did play the full 80 and led the tackle count with 18.

No one did more to limit Skelton’s impact (eight metres from 10 carries) than Ryan, in tandem with Ryan Baird (13 tackles), who played with a real hard edge in addition to his trademark athleticism, as well as Connors and Caelan Doris, who just kept showing up.

Nor could Leinster have pulled off the win without the workhorses in the tight five, especially in hitting all those rucks. Character abounded throughout the team.

So much of the analysis around Leinster is scoreline-dictated, namely after final defeats by three points and one point. For sure, La Rochelle wore Leinster down in the previous three meetings and there was an inevitability about their winning try in the Marseille final two seasons ago.

But by rights Wayne Barnes could, and perhaps should, have awarded Ala’alatoa a match-winning turnover penalty in the jackal rather than penalise Ross Molony, when the lock had rolled away sufficiently for him not to be a factor.

Similarly, the lack of a solitary pass by anyone starting outside Ross Byrne in last May’s final after going 17-0 up inside the first dozen minutes clearly underlines how La Rochelle increasingly dominated possession.

Still, had Ala’alatoa not been red-carded and an attacking penalty reversed in that endgame, Leinster might well have done to La Rochelle what the French club did to them a year previously. In either case, Leinster’s character would have been applauded, as it was in 2018 against Racing 92 in the try-less final in Bilbao, and as it was last Sunday.

Yet, although their defence had all but neutered La Rochelle in that climax, had Botia not had his finish ruled out, or had Tawera Kerr-Barlow not been stopped by Doris, or had Ryan not somehow held up Botia on the line, the dog-eared narrative might have had another airing.

It’s also worth noting, as Garry Ringrose admitted, that the rain perhaps made it a little easier to defend than attack. Yet it should also have suited La Rochelle’s power game and the lineout maul they opted for on so many occasions.

One Munster fan in La Rochelle suggested Leinster’s win was a little like one of those by the men in red over the years. It was meant as a compliment, and maybe Sunday’s win will further convince that Leinster can win ugly as well as beautiful.

But that’s bull really and insulting to the teams of the past. You don’t win away quarter-finals like Bloodgate [v Harlequins in 2009] by 6-5 unless you have character, or that epic semi-final against Clermont in a baking Stade Chaban-Delmas cauldron in 2012.

You don’t reach seven Heineken Cup finals, much less win four of them, without ticker. It takes character to keep coming back from losing finals.

It’s amazing really that reaching the final seems to increasingly earn Leinster less plaudits, and especially by playing the most brilliant attacking rugby in the competition, as if that somehow devalues the achievement. Meanwhile, teams that go out in the pool or knock-out stages are given a free pass, or at any rate subjected to less critical scrutiny.

That was a statement win. It said that Leinster are still contenders. Not that they ever really went away.

gerry.thornley@irishtimes.com