OFFICIAL Buildup Thread - Leinster vs Stade Rochelais Champions Cup Final 28/05/2022

You said the other 3 provinces were 'shitbox teams'....

That's all going to leinster anyway as they have practically all of the central contracts

Yeah but furlong Porter and sexton may be the highest paid players in their positions in the world

Beirne only became a centrally contracted player this year and Earls is likely to retire at the end of this season

Yeah but, yeah but.

You claimed something that isn't even remotely true and are now backsliding.

Sexton is centrally contracted till 2023

Earls is out of contract in a few weeks

This 👆️

People forget how bloody hard it is to win the HC.

A 3 point defeat to a French team in the south of France in 28° heat where we didn't play our best. A try at 18-10 and it was all over. Just not to be.

La Rochelle's budget was €27.9M in 2021/2022 season.

Real Madrid just won their 1st UCL in 4 years; Barcelona haven't won it since 2015 and City, despite spending £2B GBP have yet to win it.

Well Sarries should be back in the tournament next season. The French teams are obviously better than the urc and the premiership teams. Leinster were the only urc side in the sf and the other 3 were French.

I think when the Bok sids are competing in this tournament, it will make it even tougher. Next season, I think Leinster will struggle no matter the draw. Sexton will be 37 soon and RB will probably not be good enough to hoist a European cup. Sexton is playing great stuff but, I think his decline will happen soon.

Who's fault is that?

Hard lines Leinster fans, for whatever reason you never got your game going. I was reminded of the Tyson quote - 'everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face'. Leinster haven't really gotten punched in the face much this season with their first choice 15, until Saturday. I'm a bit surprised by those who think if Sexton had cleared that ball or Jimmy O'Brien hadn't knocked it out they'd have won - La Rochelle are a serious outfit (beaten finalists last year, going well in the Top14) who go the 80, they were coming at Leinster whether those things had happened or not. The errors didn't help but they came from La Rochelle pressure built up before that. There were some mad comments in the pre-match threads.

My read of it was La Rochelle caused havoc at the breakdown and they attacked midfield - did Lowe get on the ball much at all in the whole game? Once according to stats I saw, JOB got it twice. By contrast, La Rochelle's wingers got it 13 times between them. Methinks ROG did his homework.

I do think La Rochelle were the better side on the day even if they only took the lead at the death, which is a bit weird to say. 60-40 possession, three tries to none, a bigger threat in attack, won the sin bin period territory-wise to my eye and forced Leinster into making uncharacteristic errors (Keenan, JOB, Sexton in particular) throughout the match. Ross Byrne looked lost when he came on. Doris and Conan (three penalties conceded, did well in the lineout though I think?) were poor, JvdF was superb. I thought Ringrose fronted up well in defence also. JGP played pretty well too to my mind.

Leinster don't meet many teams who can match or better them physically but when they do they don't seem to have an answer at the top level, I do think there is merit to the 'being overpowered by bigger men' argument. This goes for all provinces really and Ireland. Munster took steps towards that by signing Snyman, I think if we actually saw him in a run of games he'd transform our pack and scrum. Coombes at 8 adds ballast also. Kleyn adds great bulk to our scrum and lineout maul, there's a difference when he's not there. For Ireland, I don't know if Beirne and Ryan are the best combo internationally, to me there's an argument for Henderson +1.

I know some Leinster posters were turning their nose up at Jenkins but he could be that hard b&stard needed in matches like this to stem the tide. I know CJ Stander got an awful time from some but he never stopped carrying over the 80 mins. It'll be interesting to see where Leinster go from here, they've a great crop of youngsters coming through but Sexton will surely be on the wane and I'm wondering about Leamy leaving - was he the breakdown coach and is this not a massive facet of Leinster's style - quick ball? Who's going to take over from him? You'd hope the experience of this match will galvanise the younger cohort.

I'm not going to get too much into the whole slagging debate - personally I was happy for ROG and Donnacha Ryan. It's a pity it was against an Irish side but if it was going to be against any of the four I'd hope it would be Leinster. I find it hard to believe Leinster fans would not have a certain amount of happiness if a side coached by Brian O'Driscoll with a Seán O'Brien forwards coach beat Munster. I think you can be pleased for an opponent for whatever reason without rubbing someone's nose in it. I was there in the stadia supporting Leinster in their first two HEC wins. Losing in the last minutes like that is a very tough one to take.

Still silverware to play for and Leinster are rightly favourites so all is not lost.

My issue with the whole size argument is we both the Irish provinces and Ireland seem to get monstered worse than anyone when we come up against big packs, like you don't see Wales or Scotland get beaten as badly despite the fact when we play these teams we tend to have the upper hand. When I look at that and then look at how much we as a country obsess about our players size, far more than I see people on forms in other countries talk about (including Scotland & Wales). This all leads me to believe do we just have some sort of defeatist mindset once we come up against a big pack that we cant overcome them and therefore get monstered as a result, I mean when you are getting monstered by 7 man English pack which isnt filled with monster like SA or France have then there needs to be serious questions asked.

Happy for ROG and Ryan.

Gloating at Leinster's loss is very beta.

But the "you must support Irish teams" energy gives me the creeps.

Except you have to win the restart in rugby, which on the day seemed like it would have been a 50-50 for Leinster.

It didnt though? Only against England & France. Against Wales & Scotland our scrum went well yet when these teams played England they performed far better than we did, its a pattern and makes me think is there more to our scrum getting beat than just size?