After losing three successive Champions Cup finals and then last season’s semi-final, among the many laments about Leinster coming up just short again was the theory they hadn’t been sufficiently tested along the way. Well, that certainly can’t be a complaint this season.
In securing a top-two seeding for the last three seasons, Leinster fairly breezed through the group stages to top their pools, accumulating 20, 19 and 18 points respectively. They’ve matched the latter tally this time, but with an inferior points difference while having scored 16 tries, compared to 15, 17 and a whopping 28 three seasons ago.
Perhaps more disconcertingly, having conceded five, five and seven tries in those pool campaigns, this time they’ve leaked 10 tries in their four games.
Ironically, in some respects, the opening 45-28 romp against Harlequins was the last satisfying win. Away to Leicester they trailed 15-6 at half-time and only led inside the final quarter before Dan Sheehan’s 72nd-minute try put the game to bed.
Against La Rochelle, they trailed until Josh van der Flier’s 67th-minute try and again inside the last three minutes before Harry Byrne’s penalty in overtime. Here, at Stade Jean-Dauger on Saturday, they were 10-3 down against Bayonne at the interval and only took the lead for the first time through Sam Prendergast’s 72nd-minute try.
“They get the try first phase off the lineout and you’re chasing your tail a little bit,” said Caelan Doris afterwards. “But at the same time, it was calm. There was composure, as we spoke about last week . . . and we’ve had three or four games like that now.”
Doris may not be cut from the same captaincy cloth as, say, Johnny Sexton and Peter O’Mahony, but he exudes the kind of coolness which has become a hallmark of this Leinster team.
“You don’t necessarily want to be in those situations,” he said. “You want to control and be more clinical and get a scoreboard pressure and scoreboard lead but, equally, there’s positives in how we’re finding a way.”
Leinster’s rugby may not be flowing like honey and the defence is having a mite too many mishaps, but entering the knockout stages, the pool phase hasn’t left them this battle-hardened in a while.
“Definitely – and the finding a way, backing it up from last week, coming away to France . . . that was the exciting challenge that we referenced,” added Doris. “Back into an inter-pro next week (against Connacht in Galway), so we roll on.”
Outside of the Leinster organisation, no-one will be more happy about them coming through two tight matches against French opposition than Andy Farrell. Ireland pitch up in the Stade de France for the 2026 Six Nations opener in 2½ weeks. Indeed, while the results have varied, it can be considered helpful that all seven matches played by the Irish provinces over the last two weekends have been against Top 14 teams.
Leinster’s Max Deegan scores a try against Bayonne in Saturday’s Champions Cup match. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho
“Yeah, it’s quite unique the way French teams play and there’s definitely some common denominators there with the national team and these two,” said Doris. “Obviously keeping the ball alive, big heavy men, can be quite pragmatic in their own half.
“So, hopefully it’ll stand to us. It’s good practice coming away to France and getting a win over here.”
That Bayonne were fully up for this game despite being out of contention for the knockout stages was evident in their display.
Skills and defence coach Nick Abendanon said: “To have players ringing up the coaches saying, ‘I want to play. I want to play’, that’s exactly what you want as a coaching team – players that want to go out on the field and want to play and want to test themselves against the best.
“Obviously the conditions played a huge factor into that game. With the dry ball, we would have seen a lot more running rugby from Leinster. But we shut down their space enough that they couldn’t play their expansive game.
“But what I was really happy with was that they weren’t winning metres easily in the collisions. That was one aspect I was scared [about] going into the game, that they were just going to get gain line, gain line, gain line, which they didn’t manage to do.”