Kidney hints at insoluble problems

We had hoped that after the game Declan Kidney would be able to walk into the press tent at the back of Lansdowne Road and hold up his hands so that the doubting Thomases could put their fingers in the wounds.

No such Biblical cameos this weekend. Even before the end of Saturday's quarter-final, any faint belief that Leinster could resurrect themselves from Leicester's suffocating grip had vanished and really nobody had any answers.

The fallout will be clear in time but already yesterday's news has told us Kidney has applied for the Munster coaching job, Shane Jennings will ply his trade at Welford Road and the rumours of disharmony well beyond the competitive tensions inherent in any squad continue unabated.

In Kidney's solemn post-mortem, he stoically alluded to the problem areas that beset the team and are beyond his means to resolve.

Still he was not about to criticise the IRFU or the way the Irish team management, of which he was once part, harvest the provincial players when it needs them and then dumps them back into the unit that has been lining out for the province week in week out. The Leinster coach's highlighting of Leicester's cohesiveness seemed to suggest it was a quality his own squad are sorely lacking.

"That's the way life is," he said wearily. "It's just one of the things you get on with. We want everybody to go well in this country. We've a small group of players who are being asked to do an awful lot and we just need to broaden that base.

"They've (Leicester) been playing together over a long period of time.

"They play with one another right through the season. They have that bit of cohesiveness. They're just a good team. There is no shame whatsoever losing to a good team and that's what happened us today."

No one was in the mood for blaming and whatever was said in the dressingroom after the game stayed there. Although downbeat and physically drained, captain Reggie Corrigan wouldn't fault his players for courage or commitment.

"Leicester were very, very strong, very good," he said. "They came at us with everything they could and things worked out for them. They didn't disappoint us. But I wasn't disappointed with our lads either. I thought we met fire with fire. They got the breaks. They got the scores at crucial periods of the game.

"No we hadn't faced a team like them this season . . . When they get on a roll sides like that are very, very difficult to stop. If you catch them on a day like today and you don't get your breaks that's what you are going to face. Leicester are one of those sides."

Even Leicester coach John Wells was mildly astonished about how his team conducted themselves throughout the 80 minutes and particularly in the opening quarter, which set the tone for the game.

"The first half was tremendous," he said. "There is no other word for it. I don't think Leinster got out of their own half or if they did it was just fleetingly. And whenever they did get anywhere near we just turned them. Put pressure back on them.

"Even when they had the ball we put pressure on them. It's all I could have asked of them. Martin (Johnson) said all week and made it very apparent that the first 20 minutes would dictate how this game would go. And he was absolutely right."

Johnson, who will retire at the end of the season, reflected on the turn in Leicester's fortune. From being nowhere and almost out of the competition in the pool stages, they now find themselves in the European Cup semi-final.

"We snuck in to get here," said the former English captain with all the satisfaction of an old pro who had seen it all before. "We snuck in, to be honest and we've taken the chance. Mentally the team didn't allow any of the mistakes they made in the first or second half affect them. They kept going. We reckoned before the game that there would be crucial periods in each half where we'd need to take our chance. And we did, particularly the second try, which put them away, I think, after they had come back into it."