LEINSTER’S COACH AND captain were both left to rue nothing else but their own display after today’s 29 – 14 Heineken Cup quarter-final loss in Toulon.
Aside from the convincing scoreline in the French club’s favour, there are a few damning statistics emerging since the final whistle. None more telling than the visitors’ shocking 26 missed tackles.
After being bustled into the Sky Sport’s post-match interview in the Stade Mayol tunnel, Matt O’Connor attempted to sidestep the issue of the uncharacteristically high count, but Jamie Heaslip pointed out that Toulon’s breakdown dominance had set the platform.
“They really produced some quick ball at ruck time,” Heaslip told Sky Sports, ”it was tough to get in there and have a sniff at a poach or try and slow it down with the black arts.
“The players they have on go-forward ball, on two or three second ruck ball they’re a very hard team to stop. You can’t really get off the line with any pace and they’ve a lot of pace coming forward. Players of that kind of calibre are hard to stop. They’re great players to launch and give them go-forward ball. We just didn’t neutralise that and they capitalised on it.”
O’Connor’s pre-match call had been for accuracy, but throughout the game Leinster looked like a side playing with little purpose and running out ideas and so O’Connor was asked where the accuracy had disappeared to.
“We let ourselves down in that department. We were second best for most of it,” lamented the Australian.
“They played very, very well and we knew we had to be at our very best to get the result today. We probably didn’t get a foot-hold in the game, we didn’t control the ball well enough and they were better.”
Asked what his side might do differently if they had the opportunity to play the game over again, O’Connor said:
“We didn’t look after the ball. There were three of four genuine scoring chances in unstructured positions in that first half that we didn’t take… they’re a good side, they’re hard to beat and they played very well today.”
Toulon are indeed a good side and they proved as much in the minutes after half-time. Though Leinster appeared to have won a hint of momentum by taking a 6 – 6 scoreline into half-time, the hosts strengthened their grip on the game after the break and powered into a 10-point lead that proved unassailable.
‘Hard to take’
“We’ll be ruing that 10 minutes for a long time,” said O’Connor. But with his side misfiring in attack, set-piece and breakdown, the period was very much a symptom rather than the cause.
“It’s hard to take,” said Heaslip of the exit from the tournament he has won three times.
“It’s never nice losing. We knew the challenge we had coming over here, we knew we had to be accurate and 100% on our line-outs, scrums and on execution. We weren’t and they capitalised. They took their scores very well and… yeah, we just weren’t accurate enough.”
