Leinster are in a Champions Cup final. Let that statement land for a moment, because it’s been lost in the noise surrounding the final 15 minutes of the win over Toulon.
Leo Cullen launched an impassioned defence of his players, chastising the media in the same vein as Andy Farrell did earlier this season. I liked it. It shows they care as coaches, and it gives the players something to stand behind. The postgame narrative has circled largely around what went wrong at the end of a semi-final they won.
There is something almost uniquely Irish about that. The result is enough to reach a European final, and yet the conversation is about the 15 minutes that nearly unravelled it. While it is a legitimate question, I think there are fixes well within Leinster’s control.
Leinster reach a record ninth Champions Cup final
There is no glaring discrepancy you could point to and suggest it will be their undoing, more a case of areas that can be improved, and will need improving, to succeed in that final push. There is a bit of breathing room now. Release the pressure valve before hunkering down again in three weeks.
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The good work Leinster did in the opening 65 minutes is taken as read. That is the standard that will be necessary to make the final a contest. How they manage the final quarter may decide the match. Personnel played a role in those closing stages. Sam Prendergast could never have prepared adequately enough to cover the backfield in the same fashion as Hugo Keenan.
As Toulon chased the game, indecision in the wider defensive channel offered easy territory and they took full advantage. A calm head was needed to observe the shift in Toulon’s attack and adjust accordingly. The pressure was on the French to score but it was Leinster that ended up blinking.
Joe McCarthy recognised the threat with three minutes left, ducked under the main defensive line and channelled his inner Stu McCloskey to run down Gaël Dréan and prevent an outside break. It was the intervention that saved his team. James Lowe and Jimmy O’Brien are starting/bench options for Bilbao.
I think there is an enormous opportunity in the mistakes made during that period. With the right framing, it is the most valuable coaching material Leinster have had all season.
Which brings me to Harry Byrne; he reflects Leinster’s form. When he is good, the mind wonders about how good he can be, but when there is a lapse in concentration, anxiety follows him. I think the conversation this week should not be about the areas of improvement, but what he is capable of.
There is a particular weight that comes with wearing the 10 jersey for Leinster in a Champions Cup knockout match. While Jamison Gibson-Park sets the tempo, everything runs through the outhalf. Every decision is seen, assessed and fed back by 38,000 people in real time.
When things are going well, that energy is a fuel. When the tide turns, even slightly, it can become something else entirely. Byrne felt both of those things on Saturday. This was his first genuine taste of knockout rugby with everything on the line. It will be invaluable.
The things he did well were significant – his distribution at the line was accurate when Leinster were in motion, his kicking game kept Toulon pinned for long stretches of the first half, and there were moments where his decision-making had a clarity and confidence you simply could not have asked for a season ago.
He is growing into this stage. Growing pains are only visible in players who are actually growing. In my own experience, the benefit of a senior player or someone like Enda McNulty challenging your thought process and resilience often proved invaluable.
I found myself wondering what a conversation with someone like Johnny Sexton might look like for Byrne right now, leaning into the experience of somebody who has been there particularly around moments in the game that didn’t quite come off.
[ Harry Byrne: ‘All I wanted to do was come back and compete, have a fair crack’Opens in new window ]
His kick on 73 minutes that should have been a transition moment. The spectacular option was a 50:22, but the odds favoured a long ball infield to force Toulon to kick out. His cover in the backfield, could he have worked harder to make sure the ball didn’t bounce?
Place kicking, body language, are you being selfish enough for the team? There is always a difficult balance between being selfish and selfless as a player. Cullen has given him a public vote of confidence. That should be enough.
The next step for Byrne as a player is to become someone others look to in big games, relishing the pressure. Look at Owen Farrell, Sexton, more recently Jack Crowley, they take an almost adversarial approach to pressure and as a result, have a steely exterior that exudes calm, even when things are not necessarily going to plan.
That type of mindset keeps mistakes from distracting you. It is great in theory, but it must be lived and Byrne will be better for the dry run last Saturday. Gibson-Park is central to Byrne’s development. The scrumhalf has that calmness under pressure, and their partnership has matured as the season progressed. Gibson-Park is the senior figure in impact terms, but Byrne can address that balance between now and Bilbao.
What Leinster found against Toulon, and what they must hold on to for the final, is a clarity about how they are playing. It is not necessarily pretty but it is very effective. The performance had a shape to it, a deliberateness that has not always been evident this season but started to formulate in recent weeks.
The forwards set the platform, the game was controlled through the phases, and when the chance came they pulled the trigger scoring three tries. Two others went abegging. Leinster are playing a game they are comfortable with and that is all that matters at the moment.
Because here is what Bordeaux will do. They will wait. They are the best team in Europe at exploiting transition, at turning defensive composure into attacking opportunity in the blink of an eye. Louis Bielle-Biarrey and Salesi Rayasi do not need much. A loose kick, a fractional misread, a half-second of hesitation.
If Leinster’s outhalf is thinking about a moment already gone, Bordeaux will know it before the crowd does. They are not Toulon. Their game is built on intelligence and speed of thought as much as power, and they will be extraordinarily dangerous if the tempo is ceded to them. Controlling that tempo runs through Leinster’s halfbacks; Gibson-Park and Byrne, together, must own it.
The stage is the biggest of Byrne’s career. The occasion will be enormous. None of that changes the fact that he is good enough to be a genuine point of difference in a Champions Cup final. The crowd will watch his every move. Let them. He must embrace it.
