‘Leinster have beaten us twice but they have lost two finals’ – Antoine Dupont plots revenge

A Champions Cup final for the ages awaits but this morning Toulouse and Leinster are merely pretenders to a throne.

As earthquake rousing dust settles on two raucously uneven contests, satisfaction at their respective passage to the final will combine with the feelings of discomfort in how they arrived there.

It seems apt that for these two sides, who share so much European history, there were such stark similarities to how each of them ultimately negotiated the penultimate hurdle.

Initially, the jaw-dropping domination of a first act, and a star performer in nine wallowing in the spotlight.

On the basis of their first-half displays, nobody could occupy the same sporting dominion as Leinster and Toulouse, except each other; neutrals willed time to accelerate towards a salivating final.

Until, latterly, salvation briefly flirted with two English sides who had spent most of the first-half in the gutter looking at the stars.

As some renowned characters stumbled upon their lines, forgoing expression for repression, frailties prowled the Croke Park and Le Stadium arenas.

Challengers eyed chinks of weakness; champions eventually prevailed by revisiting core strengths.

Enough to celebrate, much more to evaluate.

“I had the feeling that we wanted to manage more than to play. And that, frankly, we don’t know how to do. This is a little lesson for the future.”

Either winning coach could have uttered these words; they derived from Toulouse boss Ugo Mola.

A new script awaits in the final for these formidable sporting actors; the weekend’s fluffed lines consigned to memory.

Leinster drive for five against the team who already have five; Leinster without a title since 2018 but knowing they emphatically had Toulouse’s number in the last two semi-finals, as well as 2019.

“We are one match away from lifting a trophy!” says Antoine Dupont, irrepressible once more as he takes a break from his Olympian goals.

“This is why each of us works every day. For ten months this season, and even several years in fact, this has been our goal.

“We know that it is extremely hard to get there and the last step is certainly the most difficult.

“It will be against an opponent that we know very well and who wants to win as much as we do. It’s twice that Leinster have lost in the final.

“It will be a particular context, for which we must prepare. We know them very well, they know us very well. It’s up to us to understand it as best we can to emerge victorious.

“We obviously suspected, when we know the qualities of this team and its appetite for this competition, that Leinster would find themselves in this place. But, for our part, we had to focus on ourselves.

“We were well aware of the objectives set internally and the team put itself in the best position to reach the semi-final. We knew from experience that it was very important to get to the end.

“Now, whoever the opponent is, there is still a final to play. There will be one happy and one disappointed at the end of this meeting. The will is the same on both sides.

“The Leinster players have beaten us twice in the semis in the last two years but they have reached the final twice without winning it. So I don’t know who is more unhappy in the story.”

We will soon know the answer.

Both Ugo Mola and Leo Cullen will analyse if the sum of all their parts truly comprise a championship winning 23 after their faltering finales.

Mola hints flatteringly that any changes to his side might be prompted by the Irish opposition who, surely, cannot unfurl the exact same 23 once more.

“I hope that we will have the opportunity to prove again that it is a very good group in any case, perhaps with another composition,” smiled Mola. “We all know that everyone wants to start matches, especially a Champions Cup final. We will have to make choices, explain them and adopt this strategy.

“Opposite us, in Leinster, we will have a coach who, in terms of squad strategy, is a master in the matter.

“(Jacques) Nienaber, during the World Cup, dared and tried different teams in each of his compositions with South Africa from the quarter to the final. Perhaps we will take inspiration from the best.”

Dupont may have glittered – as Jamison Gibson-Park did for Leinster – but Francois Cros was Sunday’s outstanding performer.

His 20 tackles – six dominant – and 12 carries typified the flanker’s ferocious display but may also have contained clues to his side’s second-half vulnerabilities.

“It’s great,” he said after the five-time champions booked their London passage.

“It’s just a shame to have had this slump at the start of the second-half which almost made us doubt but which is still promising for the future, because we will have to learn from it lessons.

“If we are not able to complete 80 full minutes in the final, it will not be possible to win it.

“I don’t know, maybe we were too far ahead, and we relaxed a little. We said to ourselves that we had to continue playing and in the end, we overplayed a little.”

Get ahead of the day with the morning headlines at 7.30am and Fionnán Sheahan’s exclusive take on the day’s news every afternoon, with our free daily newsletter.