Gerry Thornley

And I know people go on about the five Champions Cup finals they lost.

They've won their last six URC finals in a row.

They don't get any credit for that.

Maybe so, maybe not.

Definitely two ways you could look at that, Nathan.

And that is, as you've outlined there, or alternatively, he could have gone out with the trophy celebration last Friday night and called a park in front of 40,000 fans and saying goodbye to James Lowe and Luke McGrath and Jerry Kerr.

And it would have been a nice way to go, too.

I'm not so sure.

I think Bilbao was definitely a blot.

It was their worst performance of the nine finals they've reached, for sure.

The game was done and dusted by halftime.

We were both there with extraordinary heat, extraordinary for them to warm up for six or seven minutes longer than everybody else, extraordinary to see them score a try after 20 phases and then almost die a death in the first half.

I mean, Noel McNamara, we met him in the airport the next day and he said the real field temperature was actually 40 degrees because virtually, as you know, an enclosed stadium.

Look, whatever all the mitigating factors about that, the point I'm coming to, Nathan, is this.

If you think about it,

Leinster beat Edinburgh, lower reaches of the URC, who are not going to qualify for the Champions Cup next season.

Then they beat Sale.

Sale finished 8th or 9th in the Premiership, well down the table.

But if it was a proper qualifying procedure from the Premiership, they wouldn't even be in the Champions Cup next season.

And then they beat Toulon, just Toulon finished 11th in the top 14.