Isa Nacewa was absolutely livid.
Showered, sharpened up but with a glaze in his eyes, the Leinster captain was still out on the field. His mind was reliving the ignominy of losing 27-15 to Scarlets in a home semi-final.
Nacewa spoke from the heart for the next 11 minutes. It was frank, honest and free from any platitudes or bullshit.
Rather than distil Nacewa’s words, we thought it would be best to serve them up whole. One hopes it shows to Leinster supporters how much this loss hurts and serves as motivation to their current squad.
Here, in all its unblemished glory, are Nacewa’s comments:
“I’ve always thought back to losing to Toulouse in a European [semi] final, in my second year here, and there’s nothing worse than losing in a semi final. It’s even worse than losing a final.
“Saving our worst performance of the season until the last season isn’t going to make for a short or exciting summer.”
“We talk about getting the basics right,” he continued. “Not doing that is always frustrating. We talked about not giving them a fast start or starting well [ourselves], then, similar to the Cardiff game, we leaked three quick turnover tries. All round, one to 15, composure in the second half wasn’t good enough against a team like Scarlets, even with 14 men.
“A little clichéd but all credit to them – they dogged it out with 14 guys. They are an in-form team coached by a very good coach so full credit to them going forward.
“It’s going to be a long review when we look back and see all that space in the back-field that we didn’t utilise. And they defended as a full line, which a lot of teams have started to do against us. So it’s disappointing that we compounded error after error on top of that also. So it’s going to be a gloomy review next week.”
“It’s been a really long season, you know? 51 players used in our squad. We encouraged all the younger guys to step up, way back in the first round against Treviso, and there have been so many positives out of the season. But here at Leinster we pride ourselves in finishing and chasing trophies and [exhales] we have to learn from this for the better of the group.
“You know, some guys are not going to play in the Leinster jersey again so it’s a sad way for them to go out. I know the younger guys will learn from the last month we’ve had because it hurts and it is going to hurt all summer. And you have to take learnings from it and it has to hurt if we want to get better.
“And I’m 100% confident in the group we have, going forward, that we’ll take learnings from these tough days.”
“It was a pretty lonely feeling, standing in the middle of the pitch in Lyon – in the European semi final – and we said out there, in the middle of the field, that we didn’t want to have that feeling again. Let me tell you, it’s 10 times worse losing a final in The RDS, in front of our home crowd. So, rightly so it’s going to hurt and so it should. If it doesn’t hurt then we’re never going to take learnings from it.
“But I know this group has taken massive strides this year. It will hurt all summer long. Some guys have a bit more rugby to go [with Ireland and the Lions] and some don’t and that [hurt] fuels the drive to not feel like this again.”
Nacewa continued, “We expected them to be very good on turnover ball. They did that. We expected them to be very good at the breakdown, which teams are doing against Leinster now. They did that. So… but they showed a hell of a lot of fight and dog, to do that with a reaguard of 14 men. It just shows you how well they have improved through the whole year with Wayne Pivac; he’s a great coach and they’re a dogged team that have been in form for a long time. They stuck to their guns and played to their strengths well.
“None of this is on one person and there was error upon error upon error from guys across the board and our own basic errors let them into the game. We’ve prided ourselves all season on it being a team performance. I think back to the Six Nations and us being without all our internationals and what we did – getting 20 points out of the 20 possible points. We’ve got to look at it from a squad perspective and take massive learnings as we said, we thought, we would after the semi final in Europe.
“I’m massively confident [that it won’t take a long time to win trophies again]. Massively confident in that a lot of the young guys were given an opportunity this year and they grabbed it. They took it. That hasn’t happened in a long time, in my eyes. We’ve battled through some tough times this season and we lose in a semi final of Europe and of the PRO12 so we’re at a level.
“But young guys, old guys, experienced guys, less experienced guys, we have to understand how much it hurts and then really clue in on the things that are going to make a difference in our on-field performance across the board.
“Front rows, second rows, loosies, backs – that’s the only way we’re going to get better. I don’t think it’s going to be a long time until we win a trophy. We’re nearly there, and the drive in the young guys is massive and they want to lift a trophy. So it’s going to hurt all summer long but we’re not far away.”
“We like to play and we like to throw the ball around but some teams are managing that well and going hard at our breakdown and playing 13, 14 guys in the front line. When teams do that, I think we have to play a second game-plan on top of that and be able to see those pictures out there.
“I’m going to be on the highlight reel of getting hit by Jonathan Davies. I’m never happy with that! We tried a game-plan to try and maybe entice them out of the line but when other basics of your game – the gainline part of your game – aren’t right, we probably played into their hands quite a bit. And Davies is a class defender. He makes great reads and we gave him far too many opportunities to do that.
“[Losing to Clermont] seems like such a long time to go and a lot has happened [since then]. We focus on the game that’s ahead so it was hard to lose in Europe but a good team gets over that and strings in performances and gets into another semi final which we did but… worst performance of the season in a semi-final of the Pro12 is not ideal.
“They’re both semi finals, like. We are critical of ourselves all the time, but at home it hurts a hell of a lot more. It really does.
“We’re going to cop a lot of shite for this in the coming week, I’m guessing, but we have to be prepared to handle that and take learnings and go forward.”
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Hurt. 13 questions answered to the print and online journalist and ‘hurt’ was mentioned 11 times.
It’s not going to be an easy summer for Leinster but, with Nacewa in the midst, they will hope to back up his words next season.
