Leinster 26 Bulls 27
Leinster’s dreams of a fifth European star having been shattered in Marseille a fortnight ago, their season came to a shuddering and anticlimactic halt with this profoundly frustrating semi-final defeat in front of a crowd of 11,565.
Their frustrations will be mostly with their own patchy performance, for they played in fits and starts, and also with a team of officials led by Italian Andrea Piardi who were hopelessly out of their depth.
Thus, for the first time in six seasons, the serial winners end a campaign trophyless, and the Bulls have given warning the threat from the South Africans is growing and will continue to do so.
Leinster did manufacture most of the game’s more thrilling moments but in contrast to the Bulls, as against La Rochelle if to a lesser extent, they weren’t their normal ruthless selves in converting close-range pressure into tries.
They will particularly rue having three attacking lineouts picked off and also a number of handling errors which relieved the pressure valve on a squally night.
The Bulls were 14/1 underdogs but overcame the travel from Pretoria in the six-day turnaround for both sides.
Jake White’s team came with a clear, restrictive and effective game plan. They competed for nearly every Leinster lineout and regularly competed at the breakdown knowing these two platforms were their attacking lifeblood.
Hooker Johan Grobbelaar was a primary thorn at the ruck, and along with Marcell Coetzee was the game’s standout performer. This tactic also gave them entries into the Leinster 22, where they went to their brutally effective, route one power game.
They defended aggressively, often from in front of the hindmost foot, and were also allowed to reduce the game’s tempo and ball in play time with injury stoppages and by taking an age over their lineouts.
But the main point of difference was perhaps the Bulls’ more effective power game in the two end zones.
Almost as if to prove a point Leinster made their intentions clear from the outset, but so did the Bulls. A sequence of one-off carries in the red zone off a lineout were repelled by some muscular tackling.
When the Leinster back-rowers began to make inroads further out, Ross Byrne put a clever diagonal in behind for Rory O’Loughlin to chase and get his foot to the ball in advance of Canan Moodie and David Kriel, whereupon Dan Sheehan of all people was first on the scene to gather and slide over in one movement.
But Chris Smith opened the Bulls’ account after Caelan Doris was pinged for not releasing and his elbow hitting the ground before he contested the ball, and the outhalf rewarded hooker Johan Grobbelaar for winning his first penalty in the jackal and punished Rory O’Loughlin for not rolling away with two long penalties into touch.
The Bulls went to their power game and were rewarded with tries off both ensuing lineouts. Moodie let the ball slip from his overly casual one-handed touchdown but it was with an advantage and from the clever tap penalty which followed, Elrigh Louw carried diagonally only to slip a switch pass for Grobbelaar to power over. Coetzee soon did likewise after Louw had been launched off the tail of the lineout.
Home crowd and team alike were sparked into life and although nicked one attacking throw from the next, with a penalty advantage, Garry Ringrose’s pullback and Robbie Henshaw’s no-look pass out the back launched Jordan Larmour. After Joe McCarthy, Henshaw picked up and stretched out for an adroit finish but even so, 14-17 down at the interval.
Henshaw’s knock-on from the interval led to what seemed another remorseless multiphase attack of one-off runners by the Bulls before Doris’ try-saving tackle and a poach by Andrew Porter earned a questionable but mightily important penalty.
However, after the Bulls repelled two Leinster forays, Welsh touch judge Craig Evans dubiously adjudged Josh van der Flier tackle on a dipping Grobvelaar was high, and when the Bulls powerful maul which followed was hauled down, Piardi awarded a penalty try and binned James Ryan.
Either side of Ryan’s return, Leinster were roused by the introduction of Johnny Sexton and a clever chip over the advancing white line, which was laughably offside, and steal by Jack Conan and charge by Doris, twice Leinster went to the corner, but Janko Swanepoel and Ruan Nortje made two more crucial steals.
Then, from a lineout on halfway, Leinster struck brilliantly. From Sheehan’s pinpoint throw to the tail, Henshaw’s inside pass put Larmour through a midfield gap and he linked with Ringrose and O’Brien for O’Loughlin to finish in the corner.
But for once Sexton couldn’t convert from the touchline and while the Italian touch judge Gianluca Gnecchi blithely ignored several Bulls players in offside positions, Piardi then pinged Molony for holding on after his own knock-on, and Morne Steyn’s penalty made it a two-score game.
Henshaw regained Sexton’s restart and O’Brien had one last threatening break before Bismarck Du Plessis was somehow allowed to come around the side and nab Luke McGrath at the base.
The crowd fell silent as the clock passed the 80 mark and the flurry of immaterial late penalties and Cian Healy’s close-range finish only prompted muted applause and an even more anticlimactic final farewell to a crowd that had already thinned out.
This wasn’t how it was meant to end.
Scoring sequence: 9 mins Sheehan try, Byrne con 7-0; 14 mins Smith pen 7-3; 20 mins Grobbelaar try, Smith con 7-10; 25 mins Coetzee try, Smith con 7-17; 33 mins Henshaw try, Byrne con 14-17; (half-time 14-17); 53 mins penalty try 14-24; 70 mins O’Loughlin try 19-24; 76 mins Steyn pen 19-27; 82 mins Healy try, Sexton con 26-27.
Leinster: Jimmy O’Brien; Jordan Larmour, Garry Ringrose; Robbie Henshaw, Rory O’Loughlin, Ross Byrne, Jamison Gibson-Park; Andrew Porter, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Furlong, Joe McCarthy, James Ryan (Capt), Caelan Doris, Josh van der Flier, Jack Conan.
Replacements: Michael Ala’alatoa for Furlong (51 mins), Ross Molony for McCarthy, Johnny Sexton for Byrne (both 54 mins), Luke McGrath for Gibson-Park (66 mins), Rhys Ruddock for Conan (70 mins), Ciarán Frawley for O’Loughlin (77 mins), Cian Healy for Porter (79 mins).
Not used: Seán Cronin for Sheehan.
Sinbinned: Ryan (53-63 mins).
Bulls: Canan Moodie, David Kriel, Cornal Hendricks, Harold Vorster, Madosh Tambwe, Chris Smith, Zak Burger; Gerhard Steenekamp, Johan Grobbelaar, Mornay Smith, Walt Steenkamp, Ruan Nortje, Marcell Coetzee, Arno Botha, Elrigh Louw.
Replacements: Kurt-Lee Arendse for Kriel (37 mins), Simphiwe Matanzima for G Steenekamp, Robert Hunt for M Smith, Janko Swanepoel (all 57 mins),
Embrose Papier for Burger (64 mins), Bismarck du Plessis for Grobbelaar (66 mins), WJ Steenkamp for Botha (71 mins), Morne Steyn for C Smith (74 mins),
Referee: Andrea Piardi (FIR).
