Leinster V Stade Rochelais. Champions Cup Final. Sat May 20, 16:45. Aviva Stadium, Dublin.

I completely agree and I've made that point before regarding Ireland at World Cups. I believe a huge reason why we consistently fail is because Irish players have so little experience in having to play seriously tough matches for consecutive weeks.

Yea. Leinster just murdered the Tigers and Toulouse. Not difficult opposition at all.

Said fans are never gonna win ultimately a bragging match if we've consistently been 2nd fiddle for 13 years , so why bother.. it's pathetic...we ve to sort our own house out..schadenfreude will get us nowhere.

And ya inappropriate choice of word on my part sorry.

well the tough games of the world cup are a 5 game tournament with 1 rest week with the changes now. we play south africa on 23rd sept and then scotland on 7th oct before knock outs the 3 weekends after that.

the changes made make it far more comparable as between the warm up games and the 2 opening pool games we ideally will be more than ready for the important games

It's a weird one, the ruck was such a mess that tidy ball for a drop goal wasn't a given, on the flip side the same sort of mess was the reason for the red card that ended the game. Also a drop goal would have left time on the clock and any return back to the Leinster half probably meant la Rochelle getting some sort of chance to win it..they were that dominant at that point.

I am sure it was on their mind how could it not be.. but they found themselves in the position where they were close to the line and too wide for a drop goal. I dunno did la Rochelle give up the wide channels purposely..don't think so. That whole passage was so frantic it's hard to imagine settling the situation down for a drop at goal, players were out of position everywhere simply cause the ball was never secure.

nothing better than statistics to analyse the game :

Leinster were destroyed by La Rochelle, when you spend your time tackling and tackling, you spoil your energy...and you lose

They had the chance way before that. Off the lineout, got to dead centre on the 22. Pick and go and then set up the kick. A 30m drop goal is very makeable and if you miss you get it back.

And they watched it seven days earlier from the stands.

A lot of Leinster fans should just suck it up and stop trying to divert the narrative away from the fact that they were justifiably beaten by Rochelle and Munster when the stakes were high.

You need to have bottle when the going gets tough, Leinster didn’t have it in both big games.

With the narrative diverted to criticism of both referees, throwing patronising comments etc.,

it’s easy to see why supporters of other Irish teams aren’t putting their arms around the shoulders of Leinster supporters atm following these defeats.

I feel for the Leinster players but some of their supporters just need to stop whining on this discussion page, maybe start an alternative discussion page for whining Leinster supporters?

The game is far far far far more physical now. A high intensity match between 1 - 4 people go for HIA's and there's nearly at one concussions. That's insane. Munster had four players missing for the semi, some because of consussion.

We need to be careful in our cozy ivory towers. I think the tournament organisers need to consider the fixture congestion at the end of season.

Maybe they needed to be rested more lol

All the 4 munster players missing for the Leinster game were because of Concussion.

All of those were due to dangerous tackles

Leinster and Glasgow are the 2 dirtiest teams in the URC in the way they hit high, come in from the side, and fly off their feet

10 HIAs by players playing Glasgow in their last 3 knockout games.....

Some interesting tidbits in this article and in the comments from overseas...

Interesting quote about the La Rochelle setup:

"There's also been a lot of fake news and sneering about La Rochelle's 'model'. In fact, their owner is a local entrepreneur who played for their juniors and has steered them back after they've been relegated a couple of times to the 2nd division - they were languishing there as recently as 10 years ago. Their region is not a rugby stronghold like the deeper southwest, but they now sell out almost all of their home matches."

Insight into the La Rochelle dressing-room:

"O’Gara knew Leinster badly wanted a record-equalling fifth title but, regardless of their home-field advantage, he had other ideas. In the buildup he told his players to imagine they were setting out to climb Everest. Who, he asked them, would they most want to conquer it for? A parent, a loved one? In the team room a mat was laid out on the floor where people could place photos of their personal inspiration. The result? A team that never flinched, even when the blue whirlwind was at full intensity in the opening 40 minutes"

"While Leo Cullen is waving goodbye to the estimable Stuart Lancaster and welcoming the current Springbok coach, Jacques Nienaber, to his coaching staff, there have been too many narrow losses in big games, particularly with O’Gara in the other coaching box, for anybody’s comfort. “You can have data for everything but you don’t have data for character,” O’Gara said afterwards."

I find that last quote interesting given the sometimes sneering comments about 'pashun' on here by a few people. Leinster will have their day again no doubt, they're too well setup now to not be at or near the top table with great regularity... but I'd say they would have killed for a Muldoon or POM (or a Sexton!) out there at times, Ryan was a huge loss of leadership (and grunt) and the implosion on the pitch was worrying with such a lead at home on such a stage. I still can't fathom how Ross Byrne doesn't even try and take a drop, especially given how they lost the previous week.

A horrible way to lose, commiserations to the decent Leinster posters on here - ye'll be back no doubt.

Muldoon? Are you serious?