Leinster battle sense of dismay in wake of defeat to Northampton

Irish Times

05-05-2025

Leinster
's French prop Rabah Slimani was not alone in believing his countrymen, referee Pierre Brousset and TMO Tual Trainini, should have awarded Leinster a penalty try in the penultimate play of Saturday's
Champions Cup
semi-final.
With the clock nearing the 79-minute mark, James Lowe passed to Josh van der Flier on Leinster's left wing and the openside was tackled short of the line by Tommy Freeman. When Van der Flier twisted around and attempted to reach out and score, he was tackled and had the ball ripped, illegally, from his hands by Northampton lock Alex Coles.
The ball squirmed loose on to the Northampton try line where Ross Byrne reached out to touch the ball down. As Byrne was off his feet, he was not allowed to play the ball, although the officials did not appear to consider that.
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After several reviews in their dialogue, Trainini seems to have asked Brousset if Coles had illegally prevented Van der Flier from grounding the ball.
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'No, because he was short and he cannot move forward,' said Brousset. 'For me, it will be just a penalty. So it will be a yellow card against five [Coles]. Then we've got a knock-on and the ball touches the base [of the corner flag] so no try. Happy? I've got a decision.'
Asked about his view of the incident afterwards, Slimani replied: 'I don't understand the decision because if it's a penalty and a yellow card, I don't know why it's not a try. But that's the ref's decision, he has his opinion but it's hard.'
Slimani has had issues with Brousset's scrummaging interpretations in the past and declined to comment about his compatriot and the scrums. Another fault line in the Leinster performance was that their power game did not yield the same reward as in their previous 62-0 and 52-0 wins over Harlequins and Glasgow. Although their lineout maul did lead directly to one of Van der Flier's two tries, it struggled for traction from the off.
'Yeah, they stacked the front quite well,' admitted Leinster lock Joe McCarthy. 'They're good maul defenders in front and they were just effective getting through seams, and they were right on the edge.
Henry Pollock of Northampton Saints breaks clear to score their second try during the Champions Cup semi-final match against Leinster at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday. Photograph:'See that they gave away a few penalties but it was probably smart by them, they didn't concede points and were happy to give away penalties 5m out. It was good by them.
'I was sort of in the second line, punching behind, and it was hard to get a good set-up. Like, usually it's clean going forward and we're firing on, but they were hitting us back.'
McCarthy echoed the view of Slimani that it was one of the most disappointing defeats of his career and also that winning a first trophy in four seasons via the URC was now vital.
'I think it's hugely important. To win a bit of silverware would probably give a bit of confidence to the group, a bit of feel-good, because I think if you go again with no silverware there's a bit more pressure on, I don't know, maybe you doubt yourself a bit. We don't need outside pressure, there's a lot of pressure on ourselves to try to win a trophy, so we'll be gunning now for the URC 100 per cent.'
The majority of the 42,207 Aviva crowd were given their first viewing of the new shooting star of English rugby in 20-year-old Henry Pollock. Aside from one stunning 50m try when he sliced through the Leinster fringe defence and took Sam Prendergast on the outside, he had a big hand in two other tries, won two turnovers and had the game's highest tackle count with 22.
As free-spirited off the pitch as he is on it, Pollock said: 'These are the games you want to play in, these are the games that as a little kid, you look at and watch. Van der Flier and Doris are the best backrowers in the world at the minute and I was just excited and couldn't wait to get out there. I was buzzing in the changing rooms beforehand, buzzing all week. It is an honour to be able to share a pitch with them.
'I would say before the game, you probably look at the team sheet and go, 'wow, Jordie Barrett is playing' and it is pretty cool. On the pitch, you don't really think about it, it is muscle memory and it is your next action is the biggest one and it doesn't really matter who you are up against.
'At the end of the day, it is just the connection between the man inside and out of you and anything you can do for the team to make that positive ... I was just excited to go up against some of the best players in the world.'