Final frontier ever more forbidding for Leinster – The Irish Times

1. Leinster’s bad losing habit

In every final, even an epic one, there has to be a loser. Roger Federer won 20 Grand Slam finals, while also losing 11. But although Leinster played brilliantly initially and defended magnificently for half an hour in the second period – with many outstanding individual performances – unfortunately they are now psychologically damaged when it comes to finals. Ronan O’Gara said as much post-match. That manifested itself in Leinster’s second-half game management and poor exit kicks. Winning finals was once habitual for them, four out of four, but this third defeat in five seasons shows that losing finals has become a habit too.

2. O’Gara’s La Rochelle building a dynasty

2. Take a bow Ronan O’Gara – La Rochelle have truly arrived as an elite power in European and global club rugby. They are only the fifth team to retain a title and but for Levani Botia’s red card two seasons ago it might now be three. O’Gara has moulded a team unrecognisable from the one he inherited, extracting the maximum out of players like Will Skelton and Georges-Henri Colombe, with greater squad depth and a big-game, unquenchable self-belief. They are possibly favourites to win their first Bouclier and O’Gara spoke afterwards about building a dynasty. They certainly don’t look to be going away any time soon.

3. La Rochelle’s superior strength in depth pays dividends

3. It was in some ways fitting that one of the La Rochelle replacements – Georges-Henri Colombe – should barrel over for the match-winning score. Leinster dominated the collision area in the first half hour, but La Rochelle’s bench had the bigger impact after a bigger summer investment. The signing of Jason Jenkins, and emergence of Joe McCarthy, was meant to fill the Nathan Hines/Brad Thorn/Scott Fardy void but James Ryan was a particularly big loss, as well as Tadgh Furlong and Robbie Henshaw, who had been playing superbly, but the Leinster pack were marched back by La Rochelle with increasingly damaging effect.

4. Leinster rue Peyper’s costly errors

4. The role of match officials and especially referees remains overbearing, and this was even truer with Jaco Peyper than Wayne Barnes a year ago, with the breakdown a war zone. But Alldritt illegally slapped the ball from Jamison Gibson-Park, when the TMO did not intervene; Jimmy O’Brien was wrongly pinged for his aerial challenge, denying Leinster a rare attacking platform in the second period. Andrew Porter having been pinged for scrummaging “on the angle”, Joel Sclavi wasn’t when helping Tawera Kerr-Barlow win a vital 67th-minute turnover before Caelan Doris was wrongly penalised when poaching for the ball as Quentin Lespiaucq Brettes dived off his feet. Cue three lineouts and penalties later (one wrongly against Ronan Kelleher when Sclavi simply fell), to the winning try and yellow card for Ronan Kelleher.

5. Leinster fans need to up their game

Leinster fans somehow acquired tens of thousands of tickets to make for a mostly blue backdrop and were certainly engaged from the off by Leinster’s blitzkrieg early salvo of three tries in a compelling final. There were chants of Lein-ster, Lein-ster and eventually a rendition of Come on You Boys in Blue – but not until the 66 minute mark. In each of Leinster’s last four games at the Aviva, their players have taken turns to encourage more from their supporters. The 4,000 Yellow Army largely outsang them. On and off the pitch, Leinster need to up their game.