Little big man Teddy holds the key to block Leinster
NICK CAIN SETS THE SCENE FOR SATURDAY’S EUROPEAN CUP FINAL IN BILBAO
WHO is Teddy Iribaren? What is for sure is that if Leinster do not know the answer by the final whistle at the San Mames stadium in Bilbao on Saturday evening – with Racing’s replacement scrum-half nothing more than a match programme note – then almost certainly it will be their fans who are toasting a fourth European Cup title.
Iribaren faces the challenge of a lifetime as the likely stand-in for Maxime Machenaud, the Racing 92 and France scrum-half, who is acknowledged not just as their driving force, but also the source of their inspiration.
Add to that Machenaud’s rise as one of the best goal-kickers in Europe and the magnitude of his loss to the Parisian side, following a knee ligament injury sustained against Bordeaux-Begles last weekend, becomes apparent.
Machenaud’s timing, which has been impeccable for club and country all season, has, for once, deserted him. As a consequence of his absence, Leinster, who were already odds-on to match Toulouse by becoming four-time European champions, have gone from hot favourites to red-hot.
Which brings us back to the task facing Iribaren. The first thing that registers is that he is pint-sized. Where Machenaud is the scrum-half equivalent of a middle-weight at a muscular 5ft 9ins (1m74) and 13st 7lb (87kg), Iribaren is a fly-weight at 5ft 7ins (1m70) and 11st (70kg).
The second is that Iribaren, 27, has been around a bit, and that in a squad full of international stars his CV is modest by comparison, with an appearance for the French Barbarians his only taste of the high life. Born and raised in Toulouse, he was part of the famous club’s academy before joining Tarbes in France’s ProD2 at 21, where he honed his trade for three seasons before joining Montpellier in the Top 14.
Although Iribaren had established himself as a scrum-half on the rise, a lack of match-action at Montpellier saw him move to Brive. Having established himself in the Brive starting fifteen for two years he arrived at Racing this campaign as a seasoned scrum-half.
With 80 matches in the Top 14 under his belt going into the final – including 25 for Racing with Machenaud regularly on international duty – Iribaren is no novice. However, even though he started in last weekend’s away victory in Bordeaux, he has never played in a match of the magnitude of the one in Bilbao.
Leinster will not take him lightly simply because he is Machenaud’s understudy, but it is inevitable they will be confident that with their wealth of back row talent, and Iribaren’s lack of big match exposure, they can rock his boat.
Dan Leavy, Scott Fardy, Jordi Murphy, and whoever gets the nod at No.9 between the accomplished Kiwi Jamison Gibson-Park and Ireland Test scrum-half Luke McGrath, will fancy that if they can unsettle Iribaren then the link between the Racing forwards and their backs can be disrupted.
The Irish side are experts when it comes to applying a chokehold, and if they can shut off the supply line to Teddy Thomas, Juan Imhoff, and Virimi Vakatawa, Racing’s brilliant counter-attacking raiders, they will not only have nullified a big part of the French side’s offensive capability, but also struck a telling psychological blow.
The Leinster brains trust led by Stuart Lancaster will have dissected the way that Thomas and Vakatawa sliced through the Munster defence in their devastating rampage in the firsthalf hour of the semi-final at the Stade Chaban-Delmas, and it explains why Iribaren has no chance of slipping under their radar undetected.
The key will be how much of the game Iribaren plays on the front foot.
Racing have almost as many internationals in their pack as Leinster, and have comparable strength on the bench. There are very few sides in Europe who can say that, and the failure of Saracens to live with Leinster in their quarter-final clash proved just how powerful the Irish outfit are from 1 to 23.
Where Leinster had a clear edge against Saracens, and even more so in their semi-final rout of the Scarlets, was that their pack was relentless, with peak fitness, ruthless clear-out technique, and a huge determination to advance in contact, the hallmarks of their success.
Where they stole an even bigger march was in the dynamism of their forwards at the breakdown, and also around the fringes and out wide.
The ease and accuracy with which all their forwards linked with their backs in open field has taken them into ‘Total Rugby’ territory, with Leavy, Fardy and wonderkid James Ryan most prominent, but front five grunts like Cian Healy, Tadgh Furlong and Devin Toner are equally adept. For a while the same was true of the slick interplay we saw from the Racing forwards as they overran Munster in the first-half of their semi-final.
Their French international props Eddie Ben Arous and Cedate Gomes Sa, and hooker Camille Chat, are as mobile as any front rowers in the game, while No.8 Yannick Nyanga, always a springheeled athlete, is enjoying a new lease of life.
Although Ben Tameifuna did not play against Munster, if he is fit the former Waikato Chiefs tight-head is another ball-handling front rower to be reckoned with. At over 22 stone the tank-like Tameifuna is a one-man maul who makes his Leinster counterpart Furlong look slimline.
However, the difference between the two packs was that where Leinster never eased-off, maintaining their shape, cohesion, and urgency for the full 80 minutes in both their knock-out victories, Racing throttled back. Their drop in energy and focus was so pronounced in the second-half against Munster that they almost opened the door to a side that appeared dead and buried at the interval.
Racing went from lethal to lackadaisical in the space of minutes, with accuracy and superb movement replaced by speculative offloads – with the gifted Leone Nakarawa one of the main culprits – as they went into meander mode for the remainder of the match. Even Machenaud could not shake them out of it.
Iribaren faces the challenge of a lifeime as the likely stand-in for Maxime Machenaud”
We can safely predict that if they slip ut of gear against Leinster in the same ay it will be game over for the arisians, with a second defeat in the nal, their first having come against aracens in Lyon two years ago. In that encounter Racing seemed bsessed with trying to batter Saracens nto submission, and having tried and ailed they have expanded their tactical orizons to become a more complete side than they were in 2016.
They also have two peerless matchwinners in Nakarawa and Thomas. The Fijian is one of the great ball-playing locks, while Thomas is a wing with such bewitching footwork and effortless pace that he appears to glide rather than run, creating tries from thin air.
However, the moments of magic they are capable of producing will not be enough if Racing do not produce a performance which matches Leinster’s for sustained intensity. Their capacity to do so is questionable – but at least the French club have two Irishmen in their own ranks with the inside track on the opposition in assistant coach Ronan O’Gara and grizzled lock Donnacha Ryan.
Both are Munstermen – and their knowledge of Leinster is priceless. Ryan’s work-rate and nous has galvanised the Racing pack this season, and he will not have ceased hammering home the 80 minute message to his team-mates.
There are also few who know Johnny Sexton better than Munster European Cup legend O’Gara, who kept the Leinster fly-half out of the Irish side for a fair while.
O’Gara is bound to have a plan for limiting the influence of the Lions and Ireland play-maker. Whether it is the Springbok Patrick Lambie opposite him, or the great All Black Dan Carter – who will be desperate to bow out on a high note in his swansong season – the aim will be to cut down Sexton’s time and space.
This will entail coming at him from as many points of the compass as possible, and getting in his peripheral vision as well as his central vision. Racing will target Sexton, and with a hard-tackling duo of openside Wenceslas Lauret and inside-centre Henry Chavancy looking to rattle his bones at every turn, it is unlikely to be the armchair ride he enjoyed against the Scarlets.
Even so, Leinster will take some snaring. Their forwards will be hard to hold, and, with quick ball, an international backline of Sexton, Robbie Henshaw, Garry Ringrose, Jordan Larmour and Rob Kearney, not to mention evergreen captain Isa Nacewa, has produced overwhelming evidence of its ability to create chances and finish them with precision.
Iribaren will be hoping to do some creating of his own for Racing, and O’Gara, in particular, will be unfazed by the idea of pitching a small, wiry scrum-half with a fast service and a nippy break into a European Cup final cauldron.
It could have something to do with the fact that O’Gara played with a scrum-half very like Iribaren for 16 years at Munster, when he and the 5ft 7ins Peter Stringer were in their heyday. The same Stringer whose man-of-the-match display and sniping try down the blindside against Biarritz in the 2006 final helped Munster to become Ireland’s first European Cup winners.
This time, despite the odds being stacked against Racing, O’Gara will be hoping that another small man packs a big enough punch to help the French side he coaches to a first European title.