This was a win carved out in the trenches, where Tadhg Furlong was his usual immense self as he and his fellow Leinster forwards delivered in spades to subdue Exeter and silence their supporters. The official stats gave him 16 carries and it seemed like more.
It’s still hard to credit that he only recently turned 25, and afterwards he immediately assumed the role of a seasoned old pro in first stressing that the job was only half done.
“It’s a good win for us, really important in terms of the pool. If we want to be ambitious this year, we’re going to have to back it up next week. Lessons were learned for us against Northampton when we won away from home and didn’t back it up the following week,” he said, in reference to the corresponding back-to-back games four seasons ago when Leinster won 40-7 at Frankln’s Gardens and then a week later Northampton gained revenge with an 18-9 win at the Aviva Stadium.
“I wasn’t involved and a lot of the squad were, that still sticks in the memory for a lot of lads. We’re under no illusions how tough it will be, tonight was as physical a game as you’re likely to play but it’s on us to back it up now. If we want to get out of this pool, we’ll have to back it up with another performance.”
But when pressed, he had to allow himself a small smile at what must have been a very satisfying win, and admit: “There’s no getting away from it, to come away to Exeter – English champions, who haven’t lost here in 12 months – it’s a very good result for us. We had to work very hard for it as well, as a pack.
Isolation
“There probably wasn’t the razzle-dazzle, the unstructured stuff and getting it into the wider channels from either team that you’d expect to see coming in.
“To go through 44 phases on the line, I felt all 44 believe me,” he added, smiling broadly, “if you take that clip in isolation it probably reflects the whole game. They are exceptionally good at the pick-and-go game in our ‘22 and some of the lads made some really important turnovers there, the energy and enthusiasm for lads to get up off the ground and make double, triple efforts was really good.
“It’s going to be tough to recover, short turnaround, but we’ll have to get our heads right and review it and move on.”
Of the 44 phase attacks that culminated in Jack Conan’s 71st-minute try, Furlong said: “The try was the clinching of it, it gave us that cushion. It was a great last 20, lads came off the bench and closed it out really well with a few scrums. We controlled it really well. It’s good to see young fellas coming on and contributing really well.
“I don’t have a lot of European experience myself, but there are a few lads in the squad with three Heineken Cups like Johnny [Sexton], Sean O’Brien and Ferg [Fergus McFadden], guys who have been around, played a lot of campaigns. They’re the leaders in our squad, the way they played tonight dragged us with them.”
No complaints
Rob Baxter, the Chiefs' director of rugby, admitted: "I've got no complaints about the result. They obviously played better than we did and deserved the scores they got. Obviously the positive is I'm pretty confident we can play a fair bit better. We have that opportunity in just six days' time. The challenge this week is to try to improve our performance more than Leinster improve theirs.
“Just catching and kicking properly would have made a significant difference today. That alongside a couple of other things around the set piece, and some five metres stuff. I’m not too unhappy.
“If we don’t convert, we don’t convert. I was more frustrated that after having one genuine go at the pick-and-go and multiple phase stuff, we wanted to pass the ball away from rucks. And that’s the bit we need to fight against. That’s that bit of, ‘Oh it didn’t work last time so it won’t work this time’.
“You almost overreact. Because Leinster didn’t convert every time they had the ball and they were pretty certain about what they wanted to do. They went through multiple phases and ended up scoring. But those are the lessons we have to learn. Although we have won a Premiership and been in a Premiership final, the European thing is still a big learning curve for us.”
