Leinster’s Tommy O’Brien’s Saturday afternoon started better than usual. He was crossing for an eight minute try that would give him team a seven point lead in a Champions Cup final… “I thought we were on,” he says of the boost before the five-try fall between that point and half-time. “Our attack was looking good, it was frustrating, the story of our first half. “We didn’t have the ball, we were on defence and it zapped a lot of our energy and when we did
have the ball, just weren’t able to capitalise.” Leinster had genuinely fancied their chances beforehand and O’Brien had given them that seven point start on the fly before the collapse. “Yeah, it was a tough one. We felt good about the day, it felt like we had a really good plan going into it. It just felt like a lot of the one-on-one battles, the 50-50s weren’t going our way. “It was hot so I was very happy with Caelan when he won the toss
and I was in the shade for the first half. I was pretty happy with that. I was hoping to be more in the shade in the second half but I wasn’t! “Listen it’s the same for both sides, it’s tough but we had the 20 minute water breaks and we were pretty full-on for the first 20 minutes, so then you have a chance to catch your breath. “Obviously there is an element of that and our own errors but you make your own
luck and they made some of that, to be fair to Bordeaux, they were the better team on the day.” And, as O’Brien revealed, nobody was throwing in the towel at half-time either – this is a club that can always reference the comeback against Northampton in a previous final, it’s considered Leinster DNA. “The club has been in this position before and come back and done a job. We just talked about going out and attacking it, we’d nothing to lose at this stage,
we’d put ourselves in a hole and go out and attack it. “Probably parts of the first half we probably felt we wouldn’t like looking back on and we wouldn’t be able to stand over. “So we wanted to sure we could stand over that second half performance and give it a lash, and whatever happens, happens and if we got back into the mix, then great. “Obviously it started well, they had a yellow, but we don’t get enough points.” This five-time European final
failure is puzzling, Leinster seem to able to do so much so right until that last leap. “It’s such a tough competition to win. I probably didn’t realise it. I was only in the building, my first year was 2018 and they won it and I was naively thinking this is going to happen every year “So it’s just an eye opener, I think everyone is pretty well aware of it, how hard a competition it is to win. “We work so hard to get
to these games, obviously a lot season, we work so hard to get here, and it was a good thing to be in this final. “It’s pretty bitter when you don’t get the right performance and you don’t get the right result at the end.” An extra busy outing for O’Brien too as, theoretically, he was marking the world’s most elusive winger and ace try-scorer Louis Bielle-Biarrey who crossed twice in the 41-19 win. “He’s just very good, a very good finisher, his pace and
good finishing, fair play to him, he’s had a great season. “He’s been great for a couple of years now. It is always good to test yourself against someone like that but unfortunately he had another good day to day.” Leinster will have to cut this hangover short as they return to knockout rugby next week with a URC quarterfinal against Lions on Saturday. Champions Cup dreams are on hold at the minute but it’s a squad that believes they have the quality to go
again, win next time. “We always do. It’s definitely a bit of an eye opener some of the stuff Bordeaux put out there today. “Probably similar to that France Ireland game, things were balls are bouncing, it’s seems that balls are bouncing their way but if it keeps happening, it’s not just luck, there is something more to it.” Click here to sign up to our sport newsletter, bringing you the top stories and biggest headlines from Ireland and beyond
Leinster, Tommy O’Brien, Bilbao heat, Champions Cup final, Bordeaux, Louis Bielle-Biarrey, URC quarterfinal, Lions, Caelan Doris