LONG READ The Champions’ Cup: All Saints' Day

There’s a theory which says that the only true belief is the belief in the absurd or, if you prefer, in the cast-iron certainty of the occurrence of the improbable. Was it Camus who first said this? Mencken, perhaps? I can’t remember. But whoever it was, Northampton Saints bought into it in spades in Dublin last Saturday. Was their win, and the manner of it, absurd? Improbable? Take your pick. Whatever else it was, it was inspirational.

Pitchside in the build-up, Premier Sports had invited Lawrence Dallaglio to the rodeo, a man whose pre-game team talks at Wasps not only peeled the paint off the walls but steeled his side to a point where they’d frequently steam out of the dressing-room without bothering to open the door. ‘The most important thing about winning at this level is believing it,’ he said. ‘You have to believe you can win.’ Top to bottom, this was the burning question surrounding Northampton’s daunting day out in Dublin and their answer was emphatic. They were not going to die wondering, not least because they did that last year and spent the 12 months afterwards kicking themselves.

In a Popeye of a performance, Phil Dowson’s side offered wit and invention at one end of the pitch and dogged obstinacy at the other. Stubborn as a grass stain, every man jack put in a monstrous shift and all their court cards came up trumps. Tactically, their young coaching team – take a bow, Sam Vesty – sketched out a game-plan that was smarter than spit, the players roundly signed off on it and the rest was down to cool heads and beating hearts in equal measure. It was simply stunning and, for Leinster, literally so.

Interestingly, Northampton were as defiant in the chequered flag interviews as they were on the pitch. ‘We had full belief,’ said their hugely influential skipper, Fraser Dingwall. ‘We have heaps of fight within this group and everything we were hearing fuelled our story; everything was driven by that.’ The unflappable Fin Smith was alongside him: ‘All week we were reading stuff: Leinster by 35, Leinster by 40,’ he said. ‘We looked at that and thought: ‘Bring it on.’ No one else believed. No one else believed.’ Further down the touchline, Henry Pollock was breathing helium in an almost Joycean stream of consciousness. ‘To come out here, no fear …  the team was just amazing, 1-23,’ he said. ‘We’ve been saying all week, why not us, why not us?’ And why not, indeed?

He [Pollock] went round Sam Prendergast on Saturday faster than butter off a hot dumpling – you wonder how much of it stems from what he actually thinks he can do, which seems to be anything and everything.

I guess you’d need to be embedded in the Saints’ dressing-room to understand what drove and underscored Saturday’s stone-cold conviction; the coaches, the senior players, the band of brothers ethos? In all likelihood, all of the above. But from the outside what seems to season, if not to symbolise, Northampton’s attitude is a hefty dollop of HP sauce. Indeed, trying to steer clear of all the Henry hyperbole is like trying to dodge death and taxes. The cheeky little so-and-so is becoming nigh-on inescapable.

Asked to sum up Pollock, most of his team-mates’ replies – playfully, you assume – are unprintable. But, tellingly, the response Phil Dowson invariably comes up with is ‘infectious … it goes through the team.’ And while much of that is epitomised by what he actually does – and he went round Sam Prendergast on Saturday faster than butter off a hot dumpling – you wonder how much of it stems from what he actually thinks he can do, which seems to be anything and everything.

Indeed, if you took Henry Pollock to the Everglades, told him to take off his clothes, dive into the swamp, track down the nearest alligator and wrestle it into submission with his bare hands, the only question he’d probably ask would be; ‘what, just the one?’ And while you can roll your eyes and write that off as the cocksure insouciance of youth, it’s a can-do, why-not attitude which, as Dowson rightly suggests, can very quickly become highly contagious. After all, your only limitations in life are what you think you can’t do.

To switch sports for a moment, the American golfer, Mark O’Meara spent 20 years on the PGA Tour – heaps of money, a ton of titles – without ever landing A Big One. At which point – this was the mid/late 90s – a young Tiger Woods moved into his Orlando neighbourhood; the two practised together, struck up a royal friendship – despite the 20-year age difference – whereupon O’Meara became his chaperone and mentor on tour; the result being both a US Masters and an Open title in 1998, the oldest player to win two majors in one season. As he generously conceded, the kid just rubbed off on him.

Henry’s going to drop a Pollock and get hoisted by his own petard. But, clearly, a sassy, young ‘smart-arse’ who doesn’t just talk the talk but walk the walk can be a genuine spark to those closest to him, even if there are times when you’re itching to swat him like a mosquito.

Woods, he said, was ‘like a little brother’ but – and here’s the thing – irritating with it. So when O’Meara won his Masters, Woods, as the defending champion, handed over his Green Jacket in the Butler Cabin at Augusta but held it six inches too high leaving O’Meara flapping dementedly trying to find the sleeves. And then, when the two went head-to-head in a World Matchplay final later that year at Wentworth, Woods, who was five up after ten, made his mate putt a two-footer on the eleventh to win his first hole. O’Meara duly drained it, offered Woods some fluent Anglo-Saxon on the twelfth tee and, still steaming, went on to win the tournament on the final green.

Look, no one’s suggesting there’s a direct parallel to be drawn here between Henry Pollock and Tiger Woods. At least not yet. And doubtless, at some point, as Woods did at Wentworth, Henry’s going to drop a Pollock and get hoisted by his own petard. But, clearly, a sassy, young ‘smart-arse’ who doesn’t just talk the talk but walk the walk can be a genuine spark to those closest to him, even if there are times when you’re itching to swat him like a mosquito.

As for Leinster? Hello darkness, my old friend. Once upon a time, this tournament, this annual, blue obsession, felt like a gift. Suddenly, it seems more of a curse. Since they last won it in 2018, they’ve lost four finals, two semi finals and a quarter final; seven heartbreaks in seven years, three of them in their own backyard. This last, catastrophic reversal – when, as Rob Kearney put it pre-game, ‘it has to be this year for this Leinster team’ – will doubtless turn the whole organisation into twisting insomniacs.

At the final whistle, Premier Sports offered a brief close-up of Hugo Keenan; blue eyes vacant, a soul of lead. The poor guy was a husk. It was all there for them and yet, somehow, almost inexplicably, they let it slip through their despairing fingers. ‘It’s going to sting for a while,’ said Head Coach Leo Cullen. ‘We weren’t good enough … we got too jittery … there’s no one to blame but ourselves which is painful to say out loud.’ No question, it’s going to be a tough few weeks both for Leinster and for Leo.

The cheap answer is that Leinster choked in the closing minutes, the problem with this being that choking is overthinking while panic is not thinking clearly enough

So what did for them? Apart from a Northampton Saints’ team who turned up tighter than the bristles on a brush? Did they inhale too much of their own publicity? Did they have too cosy a ride through the knockout stages and come to the semi final undercooked? Did they cock up their selection; namely, why on earth invest a small fortune in Jordie Barrett – utterly imperious in the quarter final – and then leave him on the bench for the semi? That call, you suspect, will prove an almighty albatross around Leo Cullen’s neck.

The cheap answer is that Leinster choked in the closing minutes, the problem with this being that choking is overthinking while panic is not thinking clearly enough. Frankly, it looked more like panic. Leaving aside a drop goal, they had two clear opportunities to bag a penalty and force the game into extra-time where their stacked bench could’ve had 20 more minutes to exert their superiority. Instead, they went all-in on a Hail-Mary play which, under the acutest of pressure, went belly up. For such a smart team, it was a surprisingly obtuse option.

All of which leaves us with an unlikely but unmissable Champions’ Cup Final. The heartening news for Northampton is that the bookmakers have already installed Union Bordeaux-Bègles as the 1/3 favourites, which is just about Pollock perfect. Has a team lying a sorry seventh in its domestic league ever won a Champions’ Cup? The very thought is simply absurd, which, you suspect, is just the way Northampton Saints would want it.