NACEWA SIGNS OFF IN STYLE
Late kick in his final Champions Cup appearance earns a fourth trophy for Leinster with Sexton unable to take crucial penalties
‘THIS WAS A CONTEST TAUTENED BY A DRAMA IT DID NOT DESERVE’ ‘PATIENCE WAS THE KEY TO LEINSTER’S EVENTUAL TRIUMPH’
WITH two minutes remaining, years of trying and succeeding and setbacks and doubts were pulled together into one micro-drama of remarkable intensity. Isa Nacewa, on his last European appearance, weeks from retirement, kicked the penalty that won Leinster the cup. That sounds as neat and sweet as a fairytale. In truth, Leo Cullen’s team skirted a nightmare here – and they did it for over an hour.
Teams that survive such a sustained dance with disaster are not accidental heroes. Leinster earned this. They deserved it. Winners find a way. It was the first time they led in the game. It was the most important time.
Johnny Sexton was wrecked, unable to kick the score, or the one before it that Nacewa landed to draw the teams level.
There were no flourishes in this 80 minutes. This was no pretty picture. Success was quarried. And at half time, it didn’t look likely. With 30 minutes to play, it looked implausible, too.
After 49 minutes, an odd noise rose from around the San Mames stadium. Sexton was attempting to kick a penalty from near half way. Were he to succeed, the teams would be tied at 9-9. The contact he made was miserable and the ball wobbled lamely towards the French side’s 22. A sound formed when a Leinster groan meets a Racing jeer was the result.
Leinster were only three behind, but this was an incident that threatened to dominate post-mortems. Sexton’s history with Racing was one of the themes that held the build-up to this match together. It wasn’t mistakes like that one that tempted Racing to pay him a fortune for two years, it was the character he would shortly display.
Five minutes on from the mis-hit, he kicked an easier shot to level the teams, and less than three minutes later, he almost gave Leinster the lead with a penalty a metre inside Racing territory.
Only Sexton could be so central to events that inched momentum Leinster’s way for the first time in an ugly but intense contest. In the final quarter, spidery cracks began to appear in a Racing defensive display that was as unfeeling and unforgiving as a sea wall.
Leinster attacking designs had broken against them like surf for the previous hour, but now the mighty blue and white wall was beginning to give. Emerging weaknesses were only an issue if the favourites found a way of cracking them into fissures, and that looked beyond them.
With their opponents in trouble, Leinster couldn’t introduce the intensity their game had lacked from the start. Instead, Racing regathered themselves and poured into Leinster’s 22, Teddy Iribaren continuing his audition for the role of unlikeliest European Cup hero in memory. He kicked his fourth penalty from four attempts to put Racing 12-9 in front, before Leinster stirred one more time.
Whether it was muscle memory, moxie, or sheer guts, they won a penalty that Sexton, treated not long before, was unable to kick.
Nacewa lofted over a shot that dropped delicately over the Racing 92 bar. This was a contest tautened by a drama it barely deserved.
Racing had worn berets on to the pitch before the start. This was supposed to be a nod to their exotic past, when a team once wore the caps in a match against Bayonne.
Here, they were again trying to acknowledge their visit to the Basque country with the fashion statement famously associated with the region.
It didn’t seem exotic but gimmicky; Donnacha Ryan was not a man schooled to wear berets before European finals.
If that suggested this Racing would be like teams of yore – shapers who would be eventually done by a deficit in character – then it was nothing more than a ruse.
It was the enormous French side that brought the power and the aggression, through ruthless defence and unflagging work at the breakdown. This was one of the areas of the game Leinster prized most, the key through which they ransacked the Scarlets in the semifinal. The lock wouldn’t pick here.
Before the final, they hadn’t lost a lineout in the knock-out stages, but that record went the way of all flesh, too. Ryan was praised for his set-piece bookishness by Devin Toner, but the Leinster lock had multiple causes to curse his onetime ally. Racing’s aggression was validated by their enormous size. Rugby’s commitment to complexity in rule-making and coaching is ceaseless, but size still counts.
That was obvious in the tackling, with Racing capable of driving back opposing ball-carriers. When the Parisians attacked, Leinster tackling was inaccurate, leaking penalties that bequeathed points.
They did get closer to crossing the try-line than the Frenchmen in the first half, but never close enough to unsettle Racing.
Sexton flapped his arms in frustration and complained to referee Wayne Barnes on more than one occasion, but it wasn’t the officiousness of Barnes that was hamstringing Leinster.
Their opponents named two fly halves in their squad on Friday, and both were gone three minutes into the game. Dan Carter was listed absent an hour before kick-off, and Pat Lambie got injured in an early break that streaked into Leinster’s half.
They adapted, their tight, effective rugby presenting Leinster with a daunting challenge. Patience, though, was central to the new champions’ eventual breakthrough. They survived for long patches of the match, protecting their own line and never disintegrating even though they played some of the worst rugby of their season.
Then, they consumed the opportunities that bobbed their way.
This is a truly great side. This was not the dashing punctuation point many had expected, but they are the champions. Four times Leinster have ruled Europe, and think of the experience their young stars will now absorb. They will have more handsome days than this, but none as hard-earned.