LONG READ Brendan Fanning: 'Leinster have the best-resourced squad in these islands but can’t make it pay.'

With the clock at 75:15 Jack Conan looks towards the coaches’ box in Lansdowne Road’s West Stand, cups his hands behind his ears, and asks: “What do we want?” This is not a scene from a concert where the lead singer asks the crowd to lob in a request. Or to join in the chorus. This is Leinster’s captain checking-in with the boss. It’s what’s known in sport as a clutch moment, so best to make the right call. When it comes to Europe, Leinster know all about tight corners.

It reminded us of the Rassie Erasmus method. Back in the day, when he was coaching the Cheetahs in 2004, the colourful coach used to communicate with his players from the back of the stand via a traffic light system. It got a lot of airplay in the World Cup two years ago when the disco started up again at critical junction points in Springbok games.

In Leinster’s case Leo Cullen wasn’t waving coloured training cones, or choosing which light to use, but surely everyone knew amber was flashing for the boys in blue. This was the seventh straight season where they were in grave danger of a premature exit from European competition.

That sequence kicked off in the final in St James’ Park, Newcastle, in 2019, and ran steadily through a list of big hitters: Saracens twice; La Rochelle three times; Toulouse once; leading to Saints this season. It gave rise to the idea that Leinster can’t win knockout games. Evidently this is not the case – they have won 10 and lost seven in that sequence alone – but the odds on them ending with silver shorten significantly if it’s neck and neck coming around the final bend.

So, back to Jack Conan with time running out. Leinster have just been awarded a penalty. It’s a handy shot to level the game. Saints have a man in the bin – Josh Kemeny – with two minutes left to serve on his sentence. Leinster have to know that taking the three points would be done and dusted before Saints get back to the full complement. In which case the home team would be receiving the restart with Saints still at 14 men, and at least three minutes to play. Presuming Sam Prendergast could knock the ball over the bar, it would be all-square. All things considered, that seemed like a reasonable outcome.

Would Leinster have been happy going to extra-time in a game where they trailed by 10 points, early in the final quarter? You would have thought so at the time.

Remember the reset for Rory McIlroy provided by his caddy in the US Masters last month, as he was facing into the play-off? Would Leinster have been happy going to extra-time in a game where they trailed by 10 points, early in the final quarter? You would have thought so at the time. Instead they went for the corner. Whereupon Saints defended the maul with minimum fuss.

Even now the remaining few minutes are still being parsed and analysed. This hasn’t been helped by Jaques Nienaber’s Monday press conference which was, at best, muddled. It’s a toss-up whether the rewind is more uncomfortable for referee Pierre Brousset than Leinster Director of Rugby Leo Cullen. They are inextricably linked: if Mr Brousset’s sliding door had been on a slightly different track then Cullen would be fancying his chances of using Bordeaux as a leg-up to a fifth star on Leinster’s shirt. Instead, he is in the throes of another heartbreak, one which he needs to explain in public.

The age we live in now has changed that dynamic. Not only is Cullen in the crosshairs, unable to say something blindingly obvious and relevant and credible – ‘If the ref awarded the penalty try to Josh van der Flier you wouldn’t be on my doorstep now’ – but he has to pick up the beat and sing the URC song. If that goes flat then Leinster’s DoR will have to step aside. He may have to do that anyway.

Even if his boys get the lyrics spot-on and don’t miss a note in the secondary competition Cullen will have to wonder if he didn’t paint a clear enough picture ahead of the Saints game. On Saturday morning I was chatting to a former Leinster and Ireland player – still very much tuned-in to what’s happening – and he couldn’t see how Saints, would come close. He reckoned the few first choice players they were missing on top of Leinster’s runaway form meant there would be no repeat of the close shave when the teams met in Croke Park last season. Complacency had settled in.

If you enjoy the advantages Leinster can call on, from finance, to fan-base to talent on tap coming from local schools, supplemented by top quality imports, then everything about your set-up needs to be the best it can be.

There were nagging doubts though. Why on earth at this stage of his very long, stellar career would Cian Healy be sent out front to rattle the cage in a European Champions Cup semi-final? Why not put your best foot forward in Andrew Porter, and your next best foot to follow with Jack Boyle? This risk has not been unique to Cullen – Andy Farrell ran it through three of the five games in the Six Nations, without getting badly burned. Surely that alone should have steered Leinster’s boss down a safer path? Elsewhere on the selection front, why would you not get after Saints with your most impressive centre from the outset this season: Jordie Barrett?

Getting those calls wrong reflects an organisation that is – like the performance of the team on the day – off the pace. They have the best-resourced squad in these islands but can’t make it pay. If you enjoy the advantages Leinster can call on, from finance, to fan-base to talent on tap coming from local schools, supplemented by top quality imports, then everything about your set-up needs to be the best it can be. Patently it isn’t, and they can’t put a finger on why because at no point in recent years – since the ‘Houston, we have a problem’ syndrome started with Europe – have Leinster lifted the bonnet on their operation and invited an outside source to audit every moving part.

This level of complacency leaks through to the field. Consider the way Leinster opened the door for Henry Pollock to exploit a wide open space, making Sam Prendergast look one-paced. Athleticism is not the outhalf’s calling card but he could question why so many of Leinster’s cattle were grazing in the wrong field – a postage stamp of land that didn’t need much looking-after – on the blind side of the breakdown. It looked like they were having a rest.

Rewind how their kick chase for Tommy Freeman’s opening try allowed James Ramm to turn what should have been a tricky defensive chore into an adventurous counter-attack.

Ultimately, against Saints, Leinster couldn’t cope with opponents who refused to co-operate – and if you can’t produce a shift in emphasis on the hoof then you’re at the wrong end of the business.

The upshot is that the seven year streak of failure in Europe will stretch to eight, at least. What started with the defeat by Saracens in St James’ Park in the European final in 2019 ran through Sarries again, La Rochelle three times, Toulouse and now Saints. Quarters, semis, finals – they’re all in there. All of them gone wrong. And no one suggests pressing pause?

Shoulder surgery for Caelan Doris takes him out of the Lions debate from which his involvement as captain was already in jeopardy. Ultimately, against Saints, Leinster couldn’t cope with opponents who refused to co-operate – and if you can’t produce a shift in emphasis on the hoof then you’re at the wrong end of the business. That’s not the level of high performance preparation Leinster get paid to deliver.