No dulling the pain as opportunity is lost

RUGBY:THIS WAS no way to end another fantastic season. However, for the third campaign in a row, Leinster will carry the bitter taste of a Rabo-Direct Pro12 League final defeat into their summer months. This one, as Leo Cullen admitted afterwards, tasted the worst, all the more so in front of a sun-drenched, carnival-like sea of blue after finishing ten points clear of the Ospreys and the rest.

Leading 30-21 entering the last ten minutes, Nathan White became Leinster’s second prop to incur a yellow card from Romain Poite – and this looked a particularly farcical decision in which both White and Paul James looked as culpable for the scrum briefly going to ground – whereupon Dan Biggar kicked a penalty and landed a touchline conversion to Shane Williams’ 78th minute try _ his second of a dream farewell game for the Ospreys as Leinster wilted in the hot afternoon sun.

Biggar’s conversion emulated his late match-winner in their 23-22 win at the RDS in March. “It’s nice to finish off with some silverware,” said Williams, but not so for Leinster, and despite finishing ten points ahead of the rest and only losing four matches this season, three of them have been to the Ospreys.

Not even the title of European champions could dull the sense of an opportunity lost for such a high achieving, high demanding group. “We’re too competitive to console ourselves with anything but the last result,” said Joe Schmidt. “One of the things we spoke about was that we used 49 players to scramble our way through to the position we were. We knew that if we worked really hard and we were successful we would have three play-off games in consecutive weekends and it was just a little bit of a bridge too far with a few guys having injuries.”

The set scrums hurt Leinster badly, having two props sin-binned after losing Mike Ross to a tweaked hamstring in the first quarter which may make him a doubt for the first test against the All Blacks on Saturday week – which in turn suddenly places a big focus on Ulster’s Declan Fitzpatrick. Having lost Stephen Ferris over the weekend to a calf injury _ prompting a call up to the squad for Kevin McLaughlin – this will have made for uncomfortable viewing for Declan Kidney as well.

“He got a twinge in the hamstring,” confirmed Schmidt, “and I can’t go into detail because we haven’t had any scans or anything else but there was a possibility that we maybe could have put him back on but then there was a massive danger that we could do him more damage with the tour coming up. We decided that wasn’t appropriate and hopefully it won’t be too bad.”

Leinster were already without Cian Healy and Seán O’Brien, and having enjoyed a healthy injury profile all season, these knocks were further evidence of another 33-game season catching up with them, and specifically the demands of three knock-out matches – culminating in back-to-back finals – on successive weekends.

In glorious sunshine, with temperatures in the early 20s, they also wilted against an Ospreys side who had enjoyed a 16-day lead-up to the game. Furthermore, for all Leinster’s desire to complete an historic double and especially in front of their own fans – who were in a particularly adoring mood yesterday – they had been sated by achieving their primary goal last week. Whatever about wanting it more, the Ospreys certainly wanted this as much. Leinster fell off more tackles than they would normally do in a month of games, especially as they wilted late on in in the heat.

It was eminently fitting that Romain Poite was first to receive a medal in the post-match on-field ceremony, as not for the first time in his career the posturing Poite was the most influential person on the pitch. While one never likes to see an official roundly booed, one could well understand it.

After a prolonged series of scrums on half-way, during which Leinster were penalised four times and Heinke van der Meuwe was sin-binned, before the siege was lifted when Adam Jones slipped and was penalised, tempers inevitably became frayed. Leinster players ran past their Ospreys counterparts toward the dressing-room whereupon there was a nasty looking off-field scuffle involving several players from both sides.

Leo Cullen didn’t so much have a running dialogue with Poite, more a running lecture. “He didn’t really want to talk to me today which was frustrating. We pick up the award for the least yellow cards this season and then give away two in the final. There were a lot of things in the game today _ I was certainly left scratching my head. But the Ospreys are a good team and all credit to them. I thought Biggar showed unbelievable character at the end.”

“We know the quality they have but it will be one of those games I’ll look back and I’ll still be scratching my head as to how we lost it.”

Leinster players fell to the ground before, shoulders drooping, trudged up to collect their third runners-up medals in a row. Try as the crowd might to lift them, they couldn’t.