They lost a final two years ago kicking their points and last year went for the jugular and scored a heap of tries early and Iâd say they thought they would need to score plenty to win âŚbut Iâd agree completely they should have built the score on SaturdayâŚespecially with Ross Byrne as that is really the only game he has
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In the lead up to the try, he over compensated for lowe being off by shooting outside-in to try and hit the 13. You simply have to make that tackle if you decide to shoot in. He didnt.
Being down a man, he should have held the defensive line, defended with his body pushing from inside-out, sheparding the toulouse backs towards the sideline and using the touchline as an extra defender.
Inatead, he shot in, missed it,pass beat him on the outside and he ended up having to do a full loop to try and get back to make last ditch tackle.
It was the wrong read and cost a try.
Danger of mental scarring all too real for Leinster following defeat
In many ways, this wasnât the worst of Leinsterâs three successive final defeats. Yet these Leinster players wouldnât be human if they didnât have deeper mental scars, and all the more so following another taut, tight decider.
A clutch of them have won a Grand Slam and retained the Six Nations, which in any other two seasons would rightly be considered as hugely successful.
Itâs just that, akin to Ireland beating eventual champions South Africa in the World Cup, so Leinster have beaten Toulouse (twice) and La Rochelle (twice) in the last three seasons, but alas not on the days that mattered most.
An exceptional generation of home-grown players possess the ability to have won more, when three brilliant finals are added to that extraordinary World Cup quarter-final.
Superbly though Leinster and Ireland have played in these games, also add the last-ditch loss in Twickenham, and thatâs five, season-defining games â all epics, all one-score games, all in the balance until the 80th minute and all lost. Thatâs a careerâs worth of heartache in a relatively short period of time.
Leinster will again ruefully reflect on the calls or moments that went against them. Was there really any difference between Alexandre Roumat and James Lowe instinctively batting balls down one-handed, other than the questionable ruling that the former didnât knock the ball forward?
Releasing
There were many others: the Jack Willis high hit on Caelan Doris in the second minute that wasnât reviewed, Jamie Osborne supposedly pulling Antoine Dupont (whom Mathew Carley seemed in awe of) from his feet, Jordan Larmour pinged for not releasing when he wasnât the tackler, the questionable knock-on against Joe McCarthy before James Loweâs finish which even a review mightnât have upheld, a fairly clear-cut case of side entry by Willis in the 68th minute, and so on.
But as Leo Cullen admitted, they can only review what is within their control. That will in part begin with himself and his coaches. Harping back to Ronan OâGaraâs alleged half-time âdiscussionâ with Wayne Barnes in Marseille, given how Toulouse communicated with Carley and co, and seemed to engineer stoppages, could Leinster have been a bit more streetwise in how they managed the game last Saturday?
Superb though their scrum and kicking game were, Leinster certainly could have been more accurate and varied. This has been hailed as Toulouseâs greatest defensive performance and best final win, but Leinsterâs handling errors contributed plenty to all those unrewarded incursions into opposition territory.
Of course, had Ciaran Frawleyâs 80th minute drop goal been fractionally inside rather than outside the left upright, the hiring of Jacques Nienaber would have been hailed as a masterstroke.
In that scenario, Leinster would have kept the most potent attacking side in this seasonâs competition try-less. The hiring of Nienaber and increased focus on defence would have been hailed a success, for better or for worse. Yet it does still rankle that Leinster have deviated from their DNA.
Admittedly, this was the fifth Champions Cup final without a try after 80 minutes. Leinster had the mother of all comebacks in 2011 and ran amok a year later in Twickenham with five tries against Ulster. But as when winning in 2018, this was the third time they havenât scored a try in 80 minutes of a final.
Toulouse have failed to score a try in three of their final wins, even after extra time in two of them and even with a refreshed Dupont, Romain Ntamack et al, they had to wait until extra time and effectively a two-man advantage before doing so last Saturday.
Looking ahead, Leinster may have many advantages domestically but they still deserve credit for mixing it with the elite of Europe and South Africa
Since 2008, Leinster have been Irelandâs sole representatives in eight Champions Cup finals as well as four semi-finals and two quarter-finals, but the other provinces are falling away.
Achievements
Since reaching the last of three successive semi-finals in 2019, Munster have gone in the pool stages, reached one quarter-final and made two Round of 16 exits. This season was Ulsterâs sixth pool exit along with a Round of 16 exit and two quarter-finals since 2014. Two Round of 16 and five pool exits have been the summit of Connachtâs achievements.
Itâs a delicate balancing act for the IRFU but in restricting their contractual system to ensure a more level playing field among the provinces this could, inevitably, weaken Leinsterâs hand in the Champions Cup and URC. Thatâs why they really needed this one, and that fifth star is only to become more difficult to attain.
Thereâs no guarantee at all that Leinster will become the first side to reach four finals in succession. For the first time ever, one league (the Top 14) has provided four champions in succession. As in La Rochelle after the previous two finals, the celebrations in Place du Capitol are worth their wait in gold to the tournament and whatâs more Bordeaux/Begles are the coming force, and now thereâs the South Africans as well.
Dupont and Toulouse alike have benefitted from his excursion into Sevens. He attributed his improvement in the jackal and those four turnovers to Sevens. He is 27, Ntamack 25, and theyâve a new wave of young talent which has infused this campaign.
Whereas the Toulouse match-day squad had an average age of 26.9 and just two players over 30, Leinsterâs was 28.3 and contained eight players over 30, with key men Jamison Gibson-Park and James Lowe aged 32 and 31.
That said, Toulouse had seven non-French players in their match day squad, with Ange Capuozzo not even in the â23â, and how much will it increase Leinsterâs chances with RG Snyman and Jordan Barrett in their ranks next season?
But the sense of missed chances gone a-begging will be acute in the Leinster camp this week. They could do with a URC title more than ever now. gerrythornley@irishtimes.com
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Yeah - that was poor.
Did well with his try-saving tackle at about 70 mins though.
He did but the Toulouse winger should have been shot with balls of his own shite for not throwing the ball back inside.
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100%
They left chances out there too - maybe not as many as Leinster but both sides defences were very good with incredible scramble
Disappointing that Gerry didnât shoehorn Top Quatorze or hors dâcombat in there.
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Someone ought to point out to Gerry how many of the Irish backline arenât homegrown.
Someone should read this rule out to him slowly.
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Doris got.joint highest on 8/10. Madness. Absolutely beasted at the breakdown, brain dead decision making (not.going for.posts, playing on the ground) and he got 2nd highest by iT? All he did was carries youd expect as norm not the exception.
Conan can feel rightly slighted this season. Backrow looks better balanced with him on the pitch. Dont know how you make the numbers work tho. Thats what leo gets the big bucks for.
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Gerry âit wasnât the referee but actually it was the refereeâ thornley.
At least some of us are honest in blaming the referee most of the time
Munster are right where Leinster were in 2008. Some very good young players and some very good older players but very few lads in that 26-30 bracket where players tend to be at their peak.
In 08 Leinster got armed with stan wright, cj van der linde, contepomi, nacewa, Whittaker and rocky elson to bridge the gap.
Munster are being asset stripped while having to hand their best player over to Leinster.
Aside from the stupid penalty at the end I thought Doris had a great game
The never-ending whine
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Itâs a simple fact.
I thought he did ok in carrying but beasted at breakdown. His opposite outplayed him, he choose corner over points repeatedly and that brain dead penalty for hands in ET was a hammer blow.
Id have taken him off instead of Baird tbh but, as hes captain, was never going to happen.
Doris was the all action, all rounder going into WC. Had him in WPOTY contention. But hes really slid back i think, workrate gone down, error rate gone up. Not sure captaincy does him any favours. Would love to see him.back to previous form
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Asset stripped? This is so hilarious, I canât wait to see Snyman lining out for Leinster and hope he has an amazing season. 
The only factually correct part of your statement was spelling Munster correctly.
Munster arenât being asset-stripped. That would suggest some form of effort to actively sell off the best assets which is a massive massive reach even for the tin foil hat brigade.
Secondly - theyâre not âhaving to hand their player over to Leinsterâ. Munster didnât offer him a further contract. At that point he was open to any further employment. I can get that it sticks in the throat that he has ended up at Leinster but thatâs quite different from what youâre suggesting.
Finally - heâs not Munsters best player or certainly it their most important. Iâd have Beirne and Crowley at the very least ahead of him.
He wasnât offered a contract due to the irfu invoking some imaginary rule after Andy Farrell refused to pick Jean Kleyn for the Irish team.
Leinster are very unlucky that they have come up against the two greatest teams of all time the past 3 years.