{"id":252320,"date":"2026-01-19T09:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T09:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/252320\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T09:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T09:04:10","slug":"leinster-enter-knockout-stages-with-a-crucial-box-ticked-for-the-first-time-in-years-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/252320\/","title":{"rendered":"Leinster enter knockout stages with a crucial box ticked for the first time in years \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

After losing three successive Champions Cup<\/a> finals and then last season\u2019s semi-final, among the many laments about Leinster<\/a> coming up just short again was the theory they hadn\u2019t been sufficiently tested along the way. Well, that certainly can\u2019t be a complaint this season.<\/p>\n

In securing a top-two seeding for the last three seasons, Leinster fairly breezed through the group stages to top their pools, accumulating 20, 19 and 18 points respectively. They\u2019ve matched the latter tally this time, but with an inferior points difference while having scored 16 tries, compared to 15, 17 and a whopping 28 three seasons ago.<\/p>\n

Perhaps more disconcertingly, having conceded five, five and seven tries in those pool campaigns, this time they\u2019ve leaked 10 tries in their four games. <\/p>\n

Ironically, in some respects, the opening 45-28 romp against Harlequins<\/a> was the last satisfying win. Away to Leicester<\/a> they trailed 15-6 at half-time and only led inside the final quarter before Dan Sheehan\u2019s 72nd-minute try put the game to bed.<\/p>\n

Against La Rochelle, they trailed until Josh van der Flier\u2019s 67th-minute try and again inside the last three minutes before Harry Byrne\u2019s penalty in overtime. Here, at Stade Jean-Dauger on Saturday<\/a>, they were 10-3 down against Bayonne at the interval and only took the lead for the first time through Sam Prendergast\u2019s 72nd-minute try.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey get the try first phase off the lineout and you\u2019re chasing your tail a little bit,\u201d said Caelan Doris afterwards. \u201cBut at the same time, it was calm. There was composure, as we spoke about last week . . . and we\u2019ve had three or four games like that now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doris may not be cut from the same captaincy cloth as, say, Johnny Sexton and Peter O\u2019Mahony, but he exudes the kind of coolness which has become a hallmark of this Leinster team. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t necessarily want to be in those situations,\u201d he said. \u201cYou want to control and be more clinical and get a scoreboard pressure and scoreboard lead but, equally, there\u2019s positives in how we\u2019re finding a way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leinster\u2019s rugby may not be flowing like honey and the defence is having a mite too many mishaps, but entering the knockout stages, the pool phase hasn\u2019t left them this battle-hardened in a while. <\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely \u2013 and the finding a way, backing it up from last week, coming away to France . . . that was the exciting challenge that we referenced,\u201d added Doris. \u201cBack into an inter-pro next week (against Connacht in Galway), so we roll on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside of the Leinster organisation, no-one will be more happy about them coming through two tight matches against French opposition than Andy Farrell<\/a>. Ireland pitch up in the Stade de France for the 2026 Six Nations opener in 2\u00bd weeks. Indeed, while the results have varied, it can be considered helpful that all seven matches played by the Irish provinces over the last two weekends have been against Top 14 teams.<\/p>\n

\"Leinster’sLeinster\u2019s Max Deegan scores a try against Bayonne in Saturday’s Champions Cup match. Photograph: Ryan Byrne\/Inpho <\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it\u2019s quite unique the way French teams play and there\u2019s definitely some common denominators there with the national team and these two,\u201d said Doris. \u201cObviously keeping the ball alive, big heavy men, can be quite pragmatic in their own half.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, hopefully it\u2019ll stand to us. It\u2019s good practice coming away to France and getting a win over here.\u201d<\/p>\n

That Bayonne were fully up for this game despite being out of contention for the knockout stages was evident in their display. <\/p>\n

Skills and defence coach Nick Abendanon said: \u201cTo have players ringing up the coaches saying, \u2018I want to play. I want to play\u2019, that\u2019s exactly what you want as a coaching team \u2013 players that want to go out on the field and want to play and want to test themselves against the best. <\/p>\n

\u201cObviously the conditions played a huge factor into that game. With the dry ball, we would have seen a lot more running rugby from Leinster. But we shut down their space enough that they couldn\u2019t play their expansive game. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut what I was really happy with was that they weren\u2019t winning metres easily in the collisions. That was one aspect I was scared [about] going into the game, that they were just going to get gain line, gain line, gain line, which they didn\u2019t manage to do.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After losing three successive Champions Cup finals and then last season\u2019s semi-final, among the many laments about Leinster…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[28581,32728,61,60,11287,112],"class_list":["post-252320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-caelan-doris","tag-champions-cup","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-leinster-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}