Tickets for Leinster’s Heineken Champions Cup semi-final against Toulouse at the Aviva Stadium next Saturday (kick-off 3pm) have gone on sale on Monday at 10am, leaving the province with effectively just five days to fill the ground as best they can.
When Leinster hosted Toulouse at the same venue and at the same stage three seasons ago the attendance was 42,916 but that was with the customary three-week break between the quarter-final and semi-final weekends.
For the first time ever the semi-finals follow the quarter-finals by just a week, an EPCR decision which is influenced by the self-interests of the Premiership and LNR, who give primacy to the Premiership and Top 14 playoffs.
It’s a situation made more ridiculous by the number of venues which were still possible until the completion of the weekend’s matches. In the circumstances, an attendance above 30,000 would be creditable and anything resembling three years ago an achievement.
On foot of Munster’s heartbreaking and epic quarter-final defeat by Toulouse on penalties last Saturday at the Aviva, Leinster secured a home semi-final against the reigning champions and five-time winners with Saturday’s commanding 23-14 win over Leicester in Welford Road.
Racing 92’s win over Sale Sharks on Sunday means they will host their semi-final against La Rochelle, who beat Montpellier at home on Saturday, in Lens next Sunday as they have rented out La Defense Arena to Genesis for a couple of concerts next weekend.
Both semi-finals will be televised on BT Sport, while the Racing-La Rochelle semi-final – with Mike Prendergast and Ronan O'Gara renewing friendships and rivalries – will be on Virgin Media and Channel 4.
Thus, for the second season in a row Leinster stand alongside three heavyweight Top 14 clubs in the semi-finals of Europe’s blue riband competition.
Where last season they were beaten by La Rochelle in Stade Marcel Deflandre and could not prevent Toulouse being the first European club to claim a fifth European Cup, now they can deny the reigning European and French champions a sixth star, while advancing to the final in Marseille two weeks subsequently in their own pursuit of a coveted fifth star.
Next Saturday’s first semi-final is a clash of European royalty alright, for they are the two most decorated sides in the competition’s history. They have met on a dozen occasions, with six wins apiece, although Leinster have won their last five meetings in Dublin dating back to their sole home defeat against Toulouse in the pool stages in 1997-98.
The match-up also has some leftovers from this year's round two Six Nations title decider in Paris, which featured nine players form Toulouse and 13 from Leinster – despite Johnny Sexton missing that game.
After Saturday's win over Leicester, when they roared into a 20-0 interval lead before standards slipped in the second-half, Leo Cullen expressed the belief that some of his players will be better after a first outing in three weeks.
Impossible
“If we’d lost this game everyone would have been saying they should have played a game over the last two weeks, but where would we play that game? It would have been impossible in terms of the trip to South Africa.
“I was there so I knew what it was like coming back in Monday morning. It’s not easy to turn that around. The English and French teams will have to face that in the future in Europe as well if they get drawn against them.
“It’s just a totally different dynamic so, yeah, there was risk in what we had done but we are through to the next round now and the guys will hopefully be better for the game even if that doesn’t guarantee anything.
“Toulouse is an unbelievably exciting challenge. They won the Top 14, won Europe, five-time champions and a lot of their players won the Grand Slam. It’s all there, isn’t it? But that’s what you want. You want to play the best and this is probably it.
“Big club, all the resources. I remember us having this conversation seven or eight years ago: ‘do we have a chance against them at all? Let’s see. We’ll do everything we can.’ We’ve done that the last number of years.”
Sexton departed with a blood injury above his right eye, while Jimmy O'Brien and Cian Healy went off near the end for HIAs but Cullen said: "They all look reasonably okay. They're all coming off in the last 10 minutes of the game for head injury assessments so we'll see; two of the three, Johnny had just taken a few bangs.
"He got a late hit right at the start of the game. It's one of those, should it be a penalty or not? Should '10s' be protected? They went down his channel. Jasper Wiese was involved in targeting Johnny and you saw he came off much the worse for wear himself with his shoulder. I'm sure Johnny will be good to go."
Next Saturday’s semi-final will be a difficult, nay impossible, watch for Munster, who then have their final URC regular season game against Leinster at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday week in order to maintain their push for home advantage in the knock-put stages.
“I’m not going to sugar coat this one,” said an emotional Johann van Graan. “This will be one that we need to take our time with, to lose a game in this fashion and when, from a group point of view, you’ve put your heart and soul into it. We believed we were going to win this game and move on to the next round next weekend, so we’ll take our time.”
Warrior
Munster supporters will forever wonder if they might have overcome Toulouse had the quarter-final not been moved to the Aviva due to the Ed Sheeran concerts, or had Peter O'Mahony not been forced off in the 64th minute with a shoulder injury when Munster were leading 24-14.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to coach a few warriors in my life and I’d say Pete is right up there in terms of being a warrior. What he means to the team, he’s a man of action and he continued after the Exeter game into this game and he was phenomenal.
“Sometimes from a warrior perspective, your mind is still whirring but your body gives way and his body gave way and I think from a respect point of view, he’s one of those players I’ll look back upon,” said van Graan, pausing at length. “And say he was a warrior.”
Heineken Champions Cup semi-finals
Saturday, May 14th
Leinster v Toulouse, Aviva Stadium, 3.0 – Live on BT Sport
Sunday, May 15th
Racing 92 v La Rochelle, Lens, 4.0 (3.0 Irish time) – Live on BT Sport, Virgin media and Channel 4
Challenge Cup semi-finals
Saturday, May 14th
Lyon v Wasps, Matmut Stadium de Gerland, 1.30 (12.30 Irish time) – Live on BT Sport
Toulon v Saracens, Stade Félix Mayol, 9.0 (8.0 Irish time) – Live on BT Sport
