Leinster captain Caelan Doris said that the prospect of several players leaving the province at the end of the season provided extra motivation before their 20-11 URC semi-final win against the Stormers.<\/p>\n
The defending champions made a dominant start at the Aviva Stadium before the South African side fought back and closed the gap to just two points. <\/p>\n
Jamison Gibson-Park was able to cross after the away side were reduced to 13 players, securing the win for Leo Cullen’s side and setting up a final against the Bulls.<\/p>\n
Ciaran Frawley<\/a> has confirmed his departure at the end of the season, while it is unclear if record-breaking try scorer James Lowe<\/a> will stay at the province.<\/p>\n “It was a proper knockout game that,” said Doris.<\/p>\n “There were a few chances at the end of the first half that we left out there and they potentially change the outcome of the game if we convert them. Credit to Stormers.<\/p>\n “Delighted with the end result and to be in another final is a massive privilege for the group.<\/p>\n “We have a special group and quite a number of guys moving on at the end of the season. It has been a big motivator for us at the knockout stages to extend the season and enjoy our time together.”<\/p>\n Leinster will now have the opportunity to defend the URC title they won against the Bulls last season, and bounce back from last month’s Champions Cup final defeat by Bordeaux-Begles. <\/p>\n Head coach Cullen praised his players’ resilience but added that there are areas to work on before the showpiece in Dublin.<\/p>\n “It had a bit of everything, but very proud of the group because that’s our sixth play-off game of the season so far and it’s like this game, they take their toll physically,” he said.<\/p>\n “So, great challenge, amazing crowd out there today, amazing atmosphere out there today, so we’re just delighted to be into another final.<\/p>\n “They are a hugely physical team, we know that, so it’s not like a surprise for us, but I think we can be better from our point of view there.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leinster captain Caelan Doris said that the prospect of several players leaving the province at the end of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-626916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}