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Courtney Lawes: 'Disappointing thing is we didn’t really test them'
Courtney Lawes paid tribute on Saturday night to the fighting spirit shown by Northampton, but the retired England Test back-rower admitted his team made too many mistakes to crib over their 17-20 Investec Champions Cup semi-final loss at Leinster.
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The 35-year-old had hoped to be leading his Saints out at Tottenham in the May 25 final in his final season at the Gallagher Premiership club before his move next season to France and a very different rugby experience in the Pro D2 with Brive.
However, Northampton ultimately paid dearly for a poor start in front of a tournament record 82,300 attendance at Croke Park, giving up two early tries and going on to trail 0-15 after 30 minutes and 3-20 four minutes into the second half.
The English league leaders commendably fought their way back from this adversity, scoring two converted tries to have Leinster on the backfoot in the closing moments, but they were ultimately unable to land either the match-winning-try sucker punch or the drop goal that would have taken the semi-final to extra time.
Lawes never doubted his side would respond positively to being so heavily under the pump against an opposition seeking to qualify for their third successive Champions Cup final. However, he was left to rue the multiple errors that left the Premiership leaders with a margin that was just a bit too much to overcome.
“I don’t think we ever felt like we were out of the game, to be honest,” he insisted. “Probably in the second half when they scored that early try, that was probably one of the points where we had to find ourselves as a team – and I think we did that.
“It’s a credit to the players that we can have something like that happen. We said all the right things at half-time, we come out and it doesn’t go your way again – to get back on the horse and go back at them, to be able to do that as a team is very good going forward.
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“But I think the disappointing thing is we didn’t really test them; like we didn’t really put our game on the park how we wanted to. We had a lot of mistakes, dropped a lot of ball, gave away a lot of penalties. You can’t win at the highest level if you are doing that kind of stuff.
“That was obviously where we lost the game. On the plus side, we were able to push one of the best club teams in the world probably and show everybody we are not going to get pushed over by anyone. There are a lot of positives to take but it’s a really good learning for us.”
Director of rugby Phil Dowson agreed. “When we set out on the European campaign we said we wanted to challenge ourselves against the best sides to find out who we are and where we are as a group. In terms of our togetherness and connectedness, that speaks volumes about our game.
“There are clearly things we need to be better at and I hope that the experience of today will allow us to do that moving forward. The first thing we need to do is make sure we put this to bed, have a drink together tonight and celebrate what that campaign was, and make sure we prepare for Gloucester appropriately over the next couple of days into next week.
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“I felt the longer the game was 20-10 the more it fell into our hands in terms of that pressure and we came more and more into the game across the board. All the substitutions had a big impact on that and that has been one of our strengths throughout this season, our strength in depth. Guys who are coming in, guys who are coming off the bench have an impact.
“Elliot Millar-Mills I thought did that today from a set-piece point of view. Sam Matavesi as well… Loads of positives in terms of those guys coming in but again, as Courtney says, the frustration is we didn’t quite get our game going in the first half in order to create more pressure. You give Leinster a 17-point start, that last 20 minutes is going to be tough.”
"The longer the game was 20-10 the more it fell into our hands… the frustration is we didn’t quite get our game going in the first half."
– Northampton boss Phil Dowson sifts through coming up short at Leinster, from Liam Heagney ?? in Dublin. #LEIvNOR #ChampionsCup #rugby pic.twitter.com/cnahgUqApV
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) May 4, 2024
Full-back George Furbank equally laid the blame for the loss on how the Premiership club fared in the first half against their URC hosts.
“First half we didn’t look after the ball well enough, probably tried force things that weren’t really there to start off with but we calmed down after the first 20 minutes and created enough opportunities to score more points and we did.
“Once Tom (Seabrook) scored that try in the corner we definitely felt like we had given ourselves a really good shot. It was actually quite calm messages, to be honest. We spoke about getting back into their half again and putting pressure on.
“They sort of shut up shop with 20 minutes to go, giving us a lot of kicks, so it was about securing that and then putting our game on the field… we came close. We put ourselves in the situation where we could have potentially should have won that game.”
Comments on RugbyPass
The Crusaders can't buy a win this season. Surely Penney's contract won't be renewed. There's still enough talent in the squad that they oughta be winning more.
1 Go to commentsABs captain for 23 seasons. Decent record. Surely nobody will surpass it. Legend. But alas a typo…
1 Go to commentsJust FYI Rugbypass, I for one am tired of your clickbait titles and thumbnails and will be clicking them no longer. Good day.
1 Go to commentsI think Farrell despite all of the stick he gets in the media is still one of if not the best fly half in the world. He is literally the full package. He can kick one of the best in the world, probably has the best defensive game of a fly half in the world and if he wants to he can run, take contact and find an offload to keep the pace of the attack. I dont know why he isnt spoken more about still being one of the best in the world with the likes of dupont. Farrell is the ultimate captain and team leader and is experienced- he has been in nearly any situation you can think of. I still believe due to these reasons that he is England’s best ever player and is still one of the best players in the world.
48 Go to commentsBlues are dominating up front and that’s been a long time coming. They have won the up front confrontation which is where canes, hilanders and act brumbies are also strong.
3 Go to commentsJust watched brumbies v safas game sadly not a show in he’ll thryr anywhere near quarters or semi contention. Admittedly some issues around new comers bot what stands out for me is coaching management, poor game planning and accuracy.
5 Go to commentsOne tough SOB!
16 Go to commentsI’ve put on 4/5 kilos since the beginning of the season too. Not good kilos. Bad kilos.
3 Go to commentsSurely there’s a ‘no knobheads’ policy ?
2 Go to commentsWallaroos have no chance of beating the Black Ferns unless Canada upsets them in Christchurch tomorrow but I doubt that as well!
1 Go to commentsWhat a joke. Could the victim do a course to reverse the long term CTE damage from the cheapshot?
2 Go to commentsTruely great player. In social media and opinion pieces he was held up and flogged for the results. People wanted someone to crucify, and he was the captain. He was still an immense presence respected by his peers. His battles with Siya Kolisi belong up with with Collins vs Burger in my opinion. Unlucky to be carded in the final, but I don’t agree that his red card was the defining moment. Not when you look at the dominant performances of the Springboks (PSDT in particular.) I think Cane should be remembered for the spirit and physicality that is special to test rugby.
16 Go to commentsSam was the man until he got injured .
16 Go to comments_Crusaders versus Leinster _at the moment might be a rout! But I would like to see the Blues play Toulouse, the Hurricanes front up against Stade Francais, and the Chiefs go against Toulon.
157 Go to commentsLove it when we overlap! Promise it was not forethought.
19 Go to commentsjfc can this guy plz stay out of the news for one week
2 Go to commentsIf stormers aren’t available. Based on form and likely availability at the time of the wales Test, you’d think Masuku would be a no-brainer to start. But starting Jordan also makes sense having Masuku come off the bench to close out the game.
2 Go to commentsGlad Tom Curry not playing needs time to recover such a great player also his brother Ben how well is he playing now .
1 Go to commentsLet’s examine what might be irking the brainless E: Up until 20 years before this coming Julys tests: 16 games: 14 wins for SA; 1 win for Ire; 1 draw From 20 years until July’ tests Ireland V SA: 13 matches Ireland won 8; SA won 4; 1 draw Points scored Ireland 261; SA 189 Ave Winning Margin: Ireland 11 points; SA 4 points (away 3, home 6) Away win record: Ireland 33.33%; SA 25% Neutral matches 1: Ireland win RWC France 2023. Last SA win June 2016 (8 years ago) They boast 3 World cups in that period (they do boast). The above record is not good, probably not much better than theirs against NZ for same period. That’s why the dopey E is starting fights in his head. He will probably ship a yellow when things don’t go their way in the first test.
127 Go to commentsGoode is like a wet fart on The Rugby Pod and should be shoved aside. Jim knows what he is on about and can get on better without Goode’s nasty little cheap shots.
127 Go to comments