The challengers keep coming, but so do Leinster
Initially, nobody huddled inside the post-match media marquee at Celtic Park asked Callum Gibbins a question. Frankly, they didn’t need to, for everything about what Glasgow’s captain felt about the hurt of a Guinness PRO14 final defeat and the glorious opportunity his team couldn’t quite grasp was plastered across his face.
“Smouldering” is the de rigueur term for the unseeing glare fixed on the face of the New Zealander, jaw rigid, eyes boring into nothing in particular, as the Leinster fans thronged in the Glasgow drizzle to hail their champions.
Eventually, the questions came, and Gibbins answered them. Warriors made too many wrong decisions, he said. They coughed up ball too often and their error count was too high.
“We’ve got the game to win these big ones. They key ingredient is just looking after ball a bit more. We’ll probably be better off for this come next year but… yeah, looking after the ball.”
The deflation in Glasgow ranks was not just because they had lost a final, but because they had lost this final. It will be a long time before Warriors have the showpiece in their own back yard again, with a huge and cacophonous home crowd and a nine-match winning run heading into the contest. Everything was there for them, but they couldn’t get over the line.
Commiserations to @glasgowwarriors who battled until the very end tonight
They have entertained the #GuinnessPRO14 fans all season and we're sure to see them back again even stronger next year ??#PRO14Proud pic.twitter.com/PMMmJl5Ycf
— BKT United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial) May 25, 2019
Celtic Park is one of the great cathedrals of British football and how the rugby fans made it sing. It was an atmosphere you don’t often get at Murrayfield – boisterous, intimidating, feverish. It was Scotstoun on steroids. The old main stand quivered when Glasgow’s troops stomped their feet and bellowed.
Rugby in this city has exploded, largely thanks to what the Warriors have done on the paddock and in the community this past decade. Rob Harley, their record appearance holder, played his first game in front of 2,879 in the autumn of 2010. On Saturday, he made his 212th club outing in front of almost 45,000 more.
Glasgow’s crowd is notoriously oppressive and extremely knowledgeable, but the storybook ending they craved was beyond their heroes in black. This was the meeting of a coming team and one who arrived a long time ago. A team with intoxicating young talent and a team of canny champions.
Leinster have been through the “nearly” cycle, the slew of near misses that almost every great side in rugby history must endure before smashing through the glass ceiling. Three years ago, they finished bottom of their European Champions Cup pool, a wretched haul of six points from six games, and got a doing from Connacht in the PRO12 final.
In 2017, they made the semi-finals of both tournaments and lost. A year later, they won the lot. Saracens snatched away their European crown this month, but four finals and three titles in two years? That’s phenomenal. That’s fortitude. That’s class.
The resilience of this Leinster side is almost palpable. The Saracens final, a game they led 10-0, will have clubbed their bodies and strained their minds. They could have wilted, but of course they didn’t. They roused themselves and went again. Munster were next – another whopper of a semi-final and a brutally hard-fought victory.
Congratulations to @leinsterrugby and @GlasgowWarriors there can only be one winner but boy did you both do @PRO14Official proud in front of a record of over 47k at @CelticFC #GuinnessPRO14 #PRO14Proud pic.twitter.com/DjRfYT4dpW
— Martin Anayi (@MartinAnayi) May 26, 2019
Pitched into this rumbling cauldron of hostility in Glasgow’s East End, Leinster were bludgeoned early on. Johnny Sexton’s passing was loose, he shanked two garryowens and pushed a straightforward penalty shot wide. Celtic Park was reverberating and the place went bonkers when Matt Fagerson scored the opening try.
The gauntlet had been thrown down to the champions, but the champions’ response was devastating. Not ninety seconds later, Luke McGrath charged down Stuart Hogg and Garry Ringrose plunged on the loose ball.
Warriors pummelled them in that first quarter. They had almost two-thirds of the first-half possession and territory but Leinster’s defence was outstanding. Jordan Larmour did enough to bring DTH van der Merwe crashing down a metre short of the line when it looked for all the world like a second Glasgow try was imminent.
When Leinster got their hands on ball, they made it count. Cian Healy burrowed over, Sexton kicked a penalty, and the province led 15-10 at the interval.
Their second-half performance was masterful, an exercise in game management, right up until the final’s great moment of chaos and for much of the play that followed it. With 15 minutes left, Rob Kearney hared after a garroywen and poleaxed Hogg in the air. It was a sickening fall that concussed the Scot, and Celtic’s Park’s reaction to the clattering of their totem was thermonuclear.
Kearney thundered into a contest he had little chance of winning and was exceedingly fortunate not to be sent off. Only Hogg’s landing on the upper portion of his back rather than his head saved his opposite man from dismissal. “No doubt there will be more to come,” said a typically deadpan Dave Rennie.
Leinster lost their full-back for 10 minutes; Glasgow lost their talisman for remainder of the game. It was a desperate end for Hogg, his last act as a Warrior before joining Exeter Chiefs to be led staggering and stupefied to the touchline. This day will haunt him, you feel, but his influence in hauling Glasgow and Scottish rugby from the doldrums has been immense.
By that point, Leinster were two scores in front. The odds on a comeback, with or without Kearney, were long. Even when Grant Stewart scampered away to drag Glasgow back within three points with five minutes left, Leinster turned the screw again. They kept Glasgow in their own 22 and challenged them to run from deep. It was magnificent, ruthless defence. James Ryan and Rhys Ruddock made 53 tackles between them.
In a game @GlasgowWarriors lost by three points, these three moments in the first half were pivotal in deciding the @PRO14Official final, giving @leinsterrugby all they needed to come away with the title. @bensmithrugby https://t.co/HhNNHonfrQ
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) May 26, 2019
In that second half, the rain fell in sheets and 73 per cent of the rugby was played inside Glasgow territory. Warriors conceded double the number of turnovers – 14 – as did Leinster. They took the wrong option too many times and their error count swelled. All these mistakes, and still they were but three points short of glory.
This young team is evolving and Saturday will be a formative experience for many of them. In the back end of the season, they have shown a belligerence and physical snarl like nothing evident during Rennie’s debut campaign. Fagerson, 20, and 22-year-old Scott Cummings, two of the youngest blokes on the field, were immense. Eight of the starting XV were 25 or younger.
Two of the elder statesmen in Pete Horne and Ryan Wilson spoke in the aftermath about Glasgow’s run to the title in 2015. Under Gregor Townsend, they lost a semi-final, lost a final, then won the crown in successive years. So far, they are two years into replicating that pattern. The thought of what may lie ahead will give the Warriors hordes a modicum of solace on a night of anticlimax.
Room for one more @cityjet ? See you soon @DublinAirport – we’re on the way home! #extrabaggage #GuinnessPRO14 #carryon ? ? pic.twitter.com/V2S5VZ8PLo
— Leinster Rugby (@leinsterrugby) May 25, 2019
Leinster played the rugby of a team who have been here a million times before and know how to get over the line. It was often turgid, unappetising fare to watch, but with each little rumble, each patiently churned ruck ball, they said to Glasgow, ‘you’re dying; your fairytale is withering’.
At the end, Celtic Park was oddly desolate, the Glasgow fans trickling away into the sodden night and fireworks erupting against the backdrop of empty seats. To Leo Cullen and his team, the subdued atmosphere and the pockets of Leinster revellers must have sounded like the roars of 60,000.
Fittingly, Sean O’Brien, their injured colossus bound for London Irish, was called up to the podium to join Sexton in hoisting aloft the trophy – another trophy. This was a fourth league title for O’Brien and Sexton. Between them, they have five European crowns and three Six Nations Championships, including a Grand Slam. The challengers keep coming, but so do Leinster.
WATCH: RugbyPass goes behind the scenes at the 2018 Guinness PRO14 final between Leinster and Scarlets in Dublin
Comments on RugbyPass
The URC and the Euro Championscup can’t run at the same time, basically dilutes both competitions.
1 Go to comments“While Sotutu should start at No.8 for the All Blacks against England, but it’s only in that arena that he can prove just how good he really is.” And that my friends is where simply hasnt shone despite multiple opportunities. Even in this performance you can see what did him in in the test arena..he almost always still runs at the opposition almost ramrod upright making him easier to stop than it should be.
1 Go to commentsShould have been 0-0 and a message from SR CEO to both teams - “don’t worry about turning up next year”.
3 Go to commentsGreat work Owen Franks. A great of this team, scoring his first try for the Crusaders since 2010.He was beaming, justifiably. A fine win, he and the rest did the job up front.
1 Go to commentsDanny Care. Lang in die tand.
1 Go to commentsBig empty stadium does nothing for atmosphere but munster are playing well with solid performance
1 Go to commentsYes, Fiji can win the World Cup! With that belief plus their christian faith🙏 and hard work it is achievable. Great article. Ian Duncan Fiji resident 1981-84
2 Go to commentsInteresting comments about Touch. England’s hosting the Touch World Cup this year and the numbers have exploded since their last World Cup in 2019, something like 70% more teams and 40 nations taking part. And England Touch have made a big thing about how many universities are in their BUCS University Touch Championship as well as Sport England membership. Can only see this growing even more domestically as more people become aware of it
10 Go to comments“Cortez Ratima is light years ahead of anyone on current form, while TJ Perenara has also skyrocketed into contention following the unfortunate injury to the talented Cam Roigard.” At last some sanity. Hitherto so many pundits have been wittering on about Finlay Christie to the point one wondered if they were observing a FC in a parallel universe where the FC they saw wasnt just the mediocre Shayne Philpott project of Fosters hapless AB reign in the real world. Ratima, Perenara and Fakatava are the ONLY logical 9s for Razor now Roigard is crocked.
3 Go to commentsThis game was just as painful as the Hurricanes game. It was real fork-in-the-eye stuff.
3 Go to commentsNow if they could just fire the Crusaders ground PA guy who likes to play his dance music and just loves the sound of his own voice the entire game, even when play is going on. And I thought their brass band thing of a few years ago was bad.
5 Go to commentsUnfortunately when you lose by far the two form players this season in Roigard and Aumua, you're left replacing two game changing Tanks with a couple of pea-shooters. Which is also about the speed of TJs pass.
4 Go to commentsBit rich coming from the guy with zero loyalty to anyone or any team, including happily taking a players place in a league world cup squad because well, SBW wanted to play in it and thus an already named player got told he was no longer going. And airing stuff like this, which may or may not be true, doesn't exactly say you're a stand up guy either SBW. Just looking to keep his name in lights as usual.
38 Go to commentsTamati Tua. …the Taniwha NPC midfielder. Ollie Sapsford, Hawkes Bay NPC midfielder…doing well
4 Go to commentsFiji deserve to be in the rugby championship, fans love seeing the Fijian national team play, the Fijian Drua is a wonderful idea but the players can still be stolen to play for NZ and AUS…
2 Go to commentsThe first concern for this afternoon are wheather forecast…
1 Go to commentsWhy cant I watch Rugby games please?
1 Go to commentsBeautiful shot from Finau, end of story. Gutted for Shaun Stevenson though.
4 Go to commentsThe Chiefs definitely didn’t win ugly. They had the superior scrum, a dominant lineout, and their defence was excellent once the Waratahs scored their two tries (thanks to some lucky refereeing calls mind you). They put pressure on the Waratahs lineout throughout the game, and the mind boggles as to why the referee did not award a yellow card or a penalty try against the Waratahs for repeated scrum infringements on their own try line before Narawa’s first try. And the Chiefs were slick with their passing and running angles on attack. It was a dominant performance all round, even with many questionable refereeing decisions.
1 Go to commentsWasnt late. Ref 2 assistants andTMO all saw it so who are you to say it was?
4 Go to comments