Leinster face final without Contepomi

FELIPE CONTEPOMI is resigned to being sidelined for six months after the 31-year-old tore a cruciate ligament in his left knee during Leinster’s Heineken Cup semi-final win over Munster on Saturday. The injury means Contepomi has played his last match for Leinster prior to next season’s move to Toulon and he will miss the final on May 23rd.

Contepomi has been quoted in La Nacion newspaper in Argentina as saying: “I am sad, but I want to face this as positively as possible. I only want to be calm, to plan what to do, how to sort out the surgery. I know I will not be the first or the last player to suffer this injury.”

“To miss the (Heineken Cup) final and what was coming at the Pumas is painful, but I know I cannot help this. The aim is to do everything to get over this and be stronger when I return. I will miss important matches, but I will be back in October, so it will not be so bad considering the time of the year this injury comes.”

The news provides the only cloud on what was an otherwise idyllic weekend for Leinster, who didn’t just reach their first ever Heineken Cup final on Saturday, they exorcised a few demons at Croke Park as well. No win will have tasted sweeter for players, management and supporters alike than dethroning the champions and their bête noires. After the manner of this fairly complete and compelling 25-6 win, all the hoary old labels can be chucked where they belong now.

Now though, comes the hard part; closing the deal.

Leo Cullen and Shane Jennings know this only too well, and it surely can’t do Leinster’s preparations and mindset any harm that they will also be coming up against the club, Leicester, who beat them in the 2005 quarter-finals.

The two-time champions yesterday secured their place in a fifth final at Murrayfield on May 23rd after a historic if rather tacky penalty shoot-out win over Cardiff in the Millennium Stadium. You can be sure that, whatever they might say in public, the Tigers will be happier to be facing Leinster than Munster, and it’s up to Leinster to disabuse them of that notion.

Not exactly Leinster’s favourite haunt, they did start out this season’s odyssey with a bonus point win there last October, and at least this time there should be a few fans present. They’ve met nine times in this competition, Leicester winning five of them.

Cullen was aware of the danger of having played their final a game too early: “I’ve a Heineken Cup losers’ medal at homer. It’s certainly not something you bandy around the place and display with great pride, you know. I’m not pretty keen to get a second one. I want to win another trophy. I know Leicester pretty well, and we’ve got a couple of weeks to build into that game.”

Croker’s world record-breaking full house was another memorable chapter in this most glorious of years for Irish rugby and the noise levels for the teams’ delayed entrance and throughout the first quarter, especially, verged on seismic.

In the hours before the game, it had seemed as if Croke Park was set for a reprise of the Red Army’s 2006 invasion, but come kick-off the segments of blue flags were almost as numerous. The Leinster players were lifted accordingly.

The decibel levels ebbed as the drama unfolded, simply because Munster supporters – after one early rendition of The Fields – were regularly reduced into periods of stunned silence as Molly won out. The only flags fluttering in the second period were blue ones too, and as some of the Red Army beat a premature retreat, they were serenaded to chants of “Cheerio”.

Encouragingly though, Leinster weren’t at all triumphalist at the full-time whistle, whatever about their fans. But although most Munster fans, like their team, seemed to take the defeat in good grace, some of them were of a mind to remind us that on foot of reaching their first final in 2000, Munster conducted a lap of honour in Bordeaux after beating Toulouse.

Brian O’Driscoll, notably, didn’t take part in yesterday’s one, and is clearly a man on a mission to complete the season of his life. Understandably though, Leinster players felt obliged to acknowledge their huge support, without milking it.

“We had a good game today, we’ve done well and we’ve qualified for the final but the final is the prize,” said Cheika, quickly striking the right note.

Not alone did Cheika help deliver a superbly well-primed team, his selection was also spot on. The bold choice of Nacewa at fullback especially, the recalling of Shane Horgan, as well as retaining faith in Contepomi and Chris Whitaker (not that there would have been much of a discussion about that in the Leinster think tank) were all utterly vindicated.

ALAN QUINLAN has an anxious wait to see if he will be cited following an incident in the second-half of Saturday’s semi-final after television pictures appeared to show him grabbing Leo Cullen’s face.

The match citing commissioner, John Byett, has until 50 hours from Saturday’s kick-off to decide whether any issues should be raised with the tournament organisers, and there was no word from the ERC yesterday.

Were the Munster flanker cited and found guilty, he could face a three-month suspension, thereby ruling him out of the Lions tour.