Following Northampton’s 37-34 win over Leinster in the Investec Champions Cup semi-final, here are our five key takeaways from a classic at the Aviva Stadium.
The top line
Leinster absolutely dominated the first-half in last year’s tie, but this year was the exact opposite as Northampton came out firing with four tries in the opening stanza.
Tommy Freeman, now all-but bolted on to go on the Lions tour, was on hand for three of their four tries with man of the moment Henry Pollock grabbing one. Fin Smith also notched a penalty to go alongside two conversions.
They didn’t have it all their own way, though, with a Sam Prendergast penalty and scores from Tommy O’Brien and Josh van der Flier making it 27-15, but it was advantage Saints going into the sheds.
With any other side in the world, that would probably be enough to dream of a final, but this is Leinster we’re talking about. And as you’d expect, they didn’t go away without a fight.
Second-half scores from Van der Flier, Caelan Doris and James Lowe brought the Irish side right back into the mix, but Saints struck back with a try from James Ramm as well.
These scores set up a truly remarkable finish. With a minute left on the clock, and Saints reduced to 13 with Alex Coles and Josh Kemeny sat on the naughty step, Leinster looked to secure a game-winning try, but through sheer grit and determination, Northampton held them at bay to clinch one of the greatest victories in Champions Cup history.
A Champions Cup classic
The allure of the Champions Cup has been fading for some time, as the gap between the top teams and the rest of the pack widens, but this was one of the greatest games in the competition’s modern history.
Describing it as Test match intensity would probably be doing it a disservice. It was beyond that. From minute one, it was utterly breathless as both teams threw the kitchen sink, oven, fridge, washing machine, boiler, whatever they could find, at each other.
Genuinely a pleasure to cover this one.
Another year of hurt
It’s another year of hurt for Leinster, as they crash out of the Champions Cup again.
Prior to this defeat, Leinster looked like champions elect, it seemed the long wait was over. Leo Cullen’s side waltzed through the pool stages, breezed through the early knockout rounds and then reached the Aviva; for it all to come crashing down.
This one felt their time to finally do it too. Questions loom over Toulouse due to their injuries at the minute, La Rochelle were dumped out in the early stages and they were back at the ground which has hosted them so often this season as the RDS undergoes a facelift. But, again, it’s a year of hurt.
You think serious questions will now begin to be asked of the coaching group, considering the riches available to them. Leinster are almost better than an international side, with the bulk of the Ireland side alongside a double World Cup-winning Springbok and an All Blacks great, yet they just can’t seem to make the next step everyone expects them to.
It’s another year of hurt.
Saintsational
As mentioned above, this was one of the greatest wins in Northampton’s history, but it was exactly what they deserved at the end of the day. They were utterly magnificent, and they had to do it in different ways.
Leinster’s defence has been impenetrable thus far in the Champions Cup, highlighted by their aggregate scoreline of 114-0 across their round-of-16 and quarter-final wins, but Northampton picked it apart today.
When it works, a blitz defence is a great tactic, but the Saints managed to just work out how to get around it on a consistent basis. Be it through intelligent kicking from Smith, like in the build-up to Freeman’s opener, or just firing it wide early to catch out the high Leinster defender, as they did for Freeman’s second or just exposing space as they did for Pollock’s score; Northampton found every conceivable way to get around the former Springbok coaches’ system.
In total, the Saints made seven line breaks across the match, with Freeman, Pollock, Ramm, Smith, Tom Litchfield, Kemeny and Juarno Augustus all notching one apiece. These in themselves tell a story, their breaks came all across the park.
Whether it was in the midfield or out wide, Northampton manipulated the defence into doing what they wanted. Again, the aggressiveness of a blitz defence works wonders when it works, but it can often leave a player isolated if they aren’t on the exact same page as the player next to them, and Northampton created those little gaps.
They threw different lines at them in midfield, with Litchfield being used right across the line despite him being named as a winger, Ramm kept popping up in different holes as well and Smith, Fraser Dingwall and Freeman managed to create a deadly axis.
Toulouse injury list goes from bad to worse as third star ruled out of Champions Cup semi-final
Leinster’s kicking game limited Northampton’s chances in the second-half, but again, when they did finally get their hands on the ball, they managed to do exactly the same. Ramm and Augustus found pockets of space where an overly-aggressive defender darted out of the line and that led to the Australian full-back dotting down.
You’d think Jacques Nienaber’s head is on Mars after that.
What will please director of rugby Phil Dowson the most, though, is that they backed up their flair with some serious steel.
In the second-half, Leinster went to pile on the pressure. Repeated kicks into backfield plunged the Saints structure into chaos, but they showed no signs of cracking as they became a resolute defensive side. Lee Radford’s ultra-connected swallow defence came to the fore, as they stayed a complete unit and just consistently bashed Leinster back. It was those big mister moments where they came into their own too.
Take the final play, players like Pollock, Coles (despite his yellow card), Curtis Langdon just stepped up to the plate and came up with consistent efforts to halt the onslaught.
Heroic.
Lions watch
There were plenty of Lions contenders on the pitch today that would have caught Andy Farrell’s eye.
For the victorious Saints, Freeman was the pick of the bunch, with his hat-trick powering the win, but around him Pollock yet again showed serious Lions quality with a terrific display, Alex Mitchell was fantastic and Dingwall again gave his chances a big boost against the likes of Garry Ringrose and Robbie Henshaw.
Van der Flier and Doris were both exceptional, and Lowe played a big role throughout too.
READ MORE: Leinster v Northampton, AS IT HAPPENED: Saints silence Dublin to book Champions Cup final spot
Src: Planetrugby.com - https://www.planetrugby.com/news/leinster-v-northampton-five-takeaways-as-heroic-saints-condemn-champions-elect-to-another-year-of-hurt-in-champions-cup-classic
