The Times - UK (2022-05-28)

the times | Saturday May 28 2022 2GS 11

Heineken Champions Cup final Sport

How they line up

Leinster

H Keenan

J O’Brien

G Ringrose

R Henshaw

J Lowe

J Sexton (c)

J Gibson-Park

A Porter

R Kelleher

T Furlong

R Molony

J Ryan

C Doris

J van der Flier

J Conan

15

14

13

12

11

10

9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

La Rochelle

B Dulin

D Leyds

J Sinzelle

J Danty

R Rhule

I West

T Berjon

D Priso

P Bourgarit

U Atonio

T Lavault

W Skelton

W Liebenberg

M Haddad

G Alldritt (c)

Replacements

D Sheehan

C Healy

M Ala’alatoa

J McCarthy

R Ruddock

L McGrath

R Byrne

C Frawley

Replacements

F Bosch

R Wardi

J Sclavi

R Sazy

R Bourdeau

A Retiere

L Botia

J Favre

Referee Wayne Barnes.

Assistants Matthew Carley,

Christophe Ridley.

TMO Tom Foley (all England)

the semi-final, and Ross Molony

popping up as playmakers, with James

Lowe roaming the field looking for

opportunities and Gibson-Park buzz-

ing around. That will be their plan again

today, in sweltering conditions on the

Côte d’Azur, especially given the size of

the opposition pack. The heat could be

a factor, with the temperature expected

to be 30C at kick-off.

La Rochelle are missing Tawera Kerr-

Barlow, the scrum half who has two

fractured bones in his hand. They do

have Brice Dulin and Jonathan Danty

in their back line plus a heavyweight

pack, which includes Grégory Alldritt,

the France No 8, and Leinster’s nemesis

Will Skelton. The Australia lock

defeated Leinster in the 2019 final and

last year’s semi-final with La Rochelle.

O’Gara’s coaching career since

Racing has taken him to the Crusaders

in New Zealand and on to La Rochelle.

There is a culture among many teams in

France not to prioritise the Champions

Cup but O’Gara has no truck with that

mindset. If La Rochelle can overturn

the odds and prevail today, he will join

Leo Cullen — his opposite number —

and Ugo Mola as only the third person

to have won the Champions Cup as a

player and a head coach.

“We want to compete on both fronts.

Mentally we are a lot stronger than last

year. You have to be very mentally

strong to come back to this stage after

what happened last year,” O’Gara said,

referring to the defeat by Toulouse in

front of only 5,000 fans at Twickenham.

“I think they’re going to get a shock

to see what a real Champions Cup final

is really like. We know it’s going to be

real, it’s going to be heaving, it’s going to

be hot and it’s going to be fast.

“What happens in semi-finals and

finals is the margins become smaller

and smaller and your capacity to

execute gets challenged more so than it

does in a regular-season game. That’s

what makes it fascinating.

“I understand the Irish psyche. I un-

derstand the French psyche and I have

a different view now that I’ve been out

of my bubble for ten years. There’s some

serious players on both sides so it will be

about who can put a squeeze on the

other team and what team will probably

crack under the pressure.”

Davit Niniashvili owed his team-mates
a cold drink in sultry Marseille last
night after two quick-fire tries at the
start of the second half spared the

Georgian’s blushes and sealed the

Challenge Cup for Lyon, their first

European trophy.

Baptiste Couilloud, the Lyon scrum

half who was a constant menace to

Toulon, had taken a quick tap penalty

and then slowed his run smartly, draw-

ing defenders before dumping an off-

load over the top to Niniashvili.

Having been the better team in the

first half, here was a gift-wrapped

chance for Lyon to take a 17-7 lead. But

Niniashvili drifted too close to the

deadball line and his left toe brushed

the whitewash as he dived. It was a sick-

ener for Niniashvili and potentially

costly. Lyon had left the door open for

Toulon at the end of a half in which they

had two potential tries chalked off.

Instead of being haunted by that

moment, Lyon slammed the door and

raced away with two tries in as many

minutes. And Niniashvili, to his credit,

enjoyed a storming second half.

Toby Arnold’s pass would have sent

Niniashvili away for a try had Aymeric

Luc not stuck out a hand and knocked

it on. Yellow for Luc, the Toulon full

back, and a penalty try for Lyon gave

them that 17-7 lead. Within two min-

utes it was 24-7 as a startling turn of

pace from Josua Tuisova and classy

kick from Léo Berdeu teed up Pierre-

Louis Barassi.

The England management team

were part of the 51,431 crowd at the

Stade Vélodrome, where they will play

Argentina in the World Cup pool stage

next year and a potential quarter-final.

Couilloud and Jordan Taufua, the

former Leicester Tigers No 8, com-

bined for the opening try, scored by the

scrum half, after Sergio Parisse’s pass

had been picked off. Baptiste Serin

nipped over for a Toulon try and they

hit Lyon with a barrage of pressure after

that two-try salvo. Lyon lost Berdeu

and then Charlie Ngatai to the sin-bin

but held out long enough to render

Cheslin Kolbe’s late effort a mere

consolation as Toulon slipped to a

fourth Challenge Cup final defeat.

Niniashvili’s blushes spared as Lyon clinch first European title

Lyo n
30

Toulon

European Challenge Cup final
Alex Lowe Rugby Correspondent

12

There was always respect but it was not
until they found themselves together at
Racing 92 in Paris — Jonathan Sexton,
the club’s glamour signing at fly half,
and Ronan O’Gara, taking his first steps
into coaching — that a friendship
brewed over cups of Barry’s Irish Tea
and the mutual bond of being two Irish-
men abroad; two rival Irishmen who
had been so proud, so competitive, so
ambitious that their personalities as
players had collided like rutting stags.
The most public demonstration of
this was in the 2009 Heineken
Champions Cup semi-final between
Leinster and Munster at Croke
Park. Sexton had not been in
the squad for the quarter-
final but got his chance
on the Leinster bench
because of injury and
he was thrust into the
fray after 18 minutes
with Felipe Contepomi
having damaged his
knee.
Sexton piloted Leinster
to victory, a seminal mo-
ment as the balance of power
shifted between the two provinces. It
was an extraordinary occasion; Croke
Park dressed in a chequered cloak of
red and blue, generating the kind of
tribal din that is reserved for those
special days in Europe.
In one shutter click of the camera,
which captured Sexton leaning over
O’Gara and roaring in his face after
Gordon D’Arcy had scored a try for
Leinster, the next great Irish fly-half
rivalry had been born.
When they travelled in a car to
Ireland kicking practice, Sexton and
O’Gara would stare out of opposite
windows in silence. When Declan Kid-
ney, the Ireland coach, made them
room together during a training camp,
Sexton slept elsewhere. This was a gen-
uine, intense rivalry. Ireland’s estab-
lished No 10 versus the coming man.
“Ours was the trickiest relationship
I’ve experienced with any player. Not
even the Pope would have mended
things at that stage,” O’Gara later said.
It was not really until those two years in
Paris (2013-15), with their playing rival-
ry behind them, that things changed.
“I had great chats with him over
Barry’s Tea. That’s when you really get
to know a fella because you’re on your
own, there’s two of you,” O’Gara told
The Irishman Abroad podcast in 2016.
“Sometimes you get more out of the
wives. If Jessica and Laura get talking
then you’re kind of, ‘Oh, we’re on to
something here.’ Spending time with a
fella, you understand what he’s about.”
O’Gara recognises better than any-
one, therefore, how important Sexton,

36, will be when the two men lock

horns again today in the Heineken

Champions Cup final, not as rival fly

halves but as Leinster playmaker and

La Rochelle coach.

Sexton will be charged with unpick-

ing O’Gara’s game plan — and imple-

menting the one drawn up for Leinster

by Stuart Lancaster — as the Irish prov-

ince go for a fifth European title to put

them on a par with Toulouse.

Sexton has been fly half for the

previous four, dating back to that

breakthrough campaign in 2009. It is

only one of the juicy sub-plots in the

narrative of this Marseille final —

and O’Gara knows it.

The 45-year-old de-

scribes Sexton as a man

“riddled with self-

doubt”, a mindset that

feeds his determination

to keep producing

match-winning turns.

That appears to be what

we are witnessing this

season; it was evident in

Sexton’s man-of-the-match

performance in Leinster’s semi-

final victory over Toulouse.

O’Gara references Sexton’s omission

from the British & Irish Lions tour to

South Africa but last year’s semi-final

defeat by La Rochelle is also eating

away at him. Sex-

ton could have

played having

passed the return-

to-play protocols

after suffering a

head injury in the

previous round

against Exeter

Chiefs but chose to

be cautious and still

regrets that deci-

sion, referencing it

within an hour of

the Toulouse win.

“I certainly

understand the mindset of

Johnny, that he’s a competitor. That’s

the understatement of the season,”

O’Gara said. “There wasn’t much of a

deal made by the fact he didn’t make the

Lions tour but that would have hurt

him deeply. I think he is fuelled by that.

Twelve months ago, Johnny probably

wasn’t playing as good rugby as he is

now. That is good for Leinster.

“He’s made changes to his game in

the fact he’s always been a good passer

of the ball but now he’s become a threat

again. You saw against Toulouse, he has

a very good running game, a good pass-

ing game, a good kicking game and he’s

very good at seeing the opportunity

before other people see it.

“That’s what a lot of great 10s do and

he sees things quicker than other

people and he’s able to manipulate his

attackers and defenders into space

because they’ve got great cohesion

among them.”

Leinster are an international team in

all but name, with 13 frontline Ireland

players in their starting line-up today.

Toulouse were driven to distraction by

the pace and the variety of Leinster’s

play; eventually resorting to playing

Jamison Gibson-Park, the scrum half,

illegally in a bid to try to slow down the

lightning-quick ruck speed.

That cohesion allows Leinster to

present a constantly rotating picture of

options, with forwards such as Tadhg

Furlong, fit to start after limping off in

Old enemy O’Gara in Sexton’s way

Great Irish fly halves buried the hatchet in Paris,

but the La Rochelle coach will be plotting to bring

down the Leinster No 10 today, writes Alex Lowe

mindset of

Sexton, who was man of the match in Leinster’s victory

against Toulouse in the semi-final, made himself known to

O’Gara in a fiercely contested semi-final in 2009, inset

ACTION IMAGES/ALAMY

La Rochelle

v Leinster

Stade Velodrome,

Marseille, 4.45pm

TV: Channel 4,

BT Sport 2