‘We are 80 minutes away from it being a good season or a very, very poor season.’
Leinster out-half Jimmy Gopperth summed up his side’s precarious situation perfectly, ahead of this Sunday’s Champions Cup semi-final against Toulon.
Leinster are having a season of contrasts – dogged and winning in Europe, porous and meek in the league. Although they insist they are still fighting for a top four Guinness PRO12 spot, that speedboat looks to have horsepowered over the shimmering horizon.
Barring an unlikely Ospreys league implosion, Sunday’s game represents all-or-nothing for Matt O’Connor’s men. Defeat to the reigning European champions will finally force Leinster to answer some of the hard questions that have been coming their way ever since Joe Schmidt could not guide them to the 2012/13 knock-out stages.
Here is how both scenarios will play out.
Leinster lose
Wayne Barnes, you ______!
Cian Healy, Sean Cronin and Mike Ross have bossed it all afternoon. When they tired, Marty Moore, Richardt Strauss and Jack McGrath took up the running. By 80 minutes, however, the scrum penalty count is looking like this: Leinster 1, Toulon 3.
Barnes has let clear infringements slide all day – in the eyes of Leinster fans – and his name tops the trending list in Ireland.
As for not recognising that Chris Masoe obstruction on Luke Fitzgerald, don’t get the fans started. On second thoughts…
Planting seeds for journalists
The game is over and the travelling fans have been applauded by jaded players.
Both Matt O’Connor and Leinster captain Jamie Heaslip mention, in general, the shame about big lads from South Africa going off their feet around the breakdown. The hope is that some scribe or pundit will follow the giant, flashing arrow to Bakkies Botha incidents in the sixth, 11th, 28th, 43rd, 43rd, 56th and 70th minutes.
A unrelated Vine, of Botha and Barnes sharing a joke together, in 2010, surfaces, adding to the conspiracy.
Trial by slow-motion TV
Sky Sports spot a player tying a boot-lace as Toulon run in their sixth try. The game is burnt toast by then but the distracted actions of a highly-paid player signify a team in decline.
The player responds, three weeks later [he goes dark until then], with an Instagram post about new lace-less boots that have been kindly supplied, in six different colours, by a leading sports brand.
#MattOConnorOut hashtags flood Twitter timelines
The former Australian centre has come in for criticism almost as soon as he set foot at Leinster headquarters. Not helped by the departures of Isa Nacewa and Johnny Sexton, O’Connor’s then suffered a spate of injuries. He won the league in his first season and got his team to the last four of Europe but the spectacle has often been grim.
Both fair-weather and ardent fans lose patience when their team is pumped in Europe again.
He is accused of messing with the ‘Leinster Way’, a notion of free-flowing backs and gritty forwards that last four years but is seen as a mythically-steeped template for future teams.
Doomsday scenarios
The Top 14 are threatening the very foundation of rugby. By allowing billionaires and private businessfolk, not unions, fund clubs, the world’s best talents are being vacuumed into one super league. Calls are made for World Rugby to clamp down and impose transfer and wage restrictions.
At the same time, calls are made to cut back on Irish restrictions. ‘If we can get hold of Denis O’Brien,’ ponders one fan on Facebook, ‘maybe Richie McCaw might be up for a couple of years at the RDS.’
‘Our focus is on the league’
Forget about that shadow team we sent to play Dragons, we were always 100% serious about defending our league title and will not stop fighting until the final whistle.
Complete faith
‘We’re 100% behind the coach’ declare a number of senior players. It is the same sound-bite that fans and journalists have heard during the final days of Gary Ella, Rob Penney and Declan Kidney [with Ireland].
Six days later and the coach is gone. Stories emerge from unnamed club sources of players being unhappy with the old regime and playing style.
‘Maybe now we can pass the effin’ thing,’ declares the source.
Joe Schmidt rumours
Is it possible that Joe Schmidt may take up his old post if Ireland have a good run at the World Cup. Is it likely? Far from it, but somebody knows a lad, who has heard from a mate of the guy that trims Schmidt’s blonde mane that he is eyeing up a house in Stackstown.
Brian O’Driscoll rumours
While the mill is milling, why not a return for the prodigious son?
A reporter corners a senior Leinster source and asks if O’Driscoll could still keep up his TV commitments if he were to take on a coaching role.
‘I’m sure we can work something out,’ the Leinster blazer offers.
A reputable rugby correspondent mentions an O’Driscoll-Schmidt combo on Newstalk and Ireland almost implodes.
Leinster win
‘Nobody believed in us’
The post-match interview features Matt O’Connor looking severely uncomfortable as he tries to suppress a smile.
‘Aw, we never said it was impossible… that was you guys,’ he quips.
Dressing room celebration shots
The backs-to-the-wall mentality has paid off and Leinster have defied the odds. Two battle-weary forwards pose together for a snap that is tweeted out with the hashtag #BrothersinBlue
The @BrianODriscoll tweet
‘Great fighting spirit. Just like Darce said #BrothersinBlue’ declares O’Driscoll, suggesting he knows more than he is letting on [like this one after the Bath QF win]…
Bit tighter in the end than they would have liked but another semi final for Leinster. Well done lads. #nottheworstpoorseasonisit
— Brian O’Driscoll (@BrianODriscoll) April 4, 2015
Forget the microphone, I’m still one of you boys.
Told-you-so
The six fans and one journalist that predicted Leinster success trumpet their loyalty and wise words.
“I told you that if @SeanOBrien1987 shut down Steffon Armitage at B.D and Cian Healy got after Carl Hayman, at scrum-time, that we had this in the bag,” a true blue modestly pips.
#Tickets4Twickers
Leinster are back in another final and the demand for tickets to Twickenham, for the May 2 final, is through the roof.
Leinster jerseys are rediscovered from dark recesses of wardrobes across the province. Owners of any jersey with Bank of Scotland sponsorship and baggy sleeves, are infused with haughty sense of superiority.
There is outrage by the escalating prices for airplane tickets and for match tickets. Joe Duffy fields call from angry man in Donbate, who demands that Brian O’Driscoll step down as Ireland boss because of the scandal. Joe agrees.
Michael O’Leary makes another winning Late Late Show appearance to announce extra Ryanair flights to meet demand.
‘Unfortunately,’ he grins, ‘there is not one for everyone in the audience.’
