Chapter 1: What were the highlights of Gareth's experience during the Women's Six Nations?
Hello and welcome along to the RT Rugby Podcast, the post-Bill Bough edition defeats for Leinster and Ulster in the Champions and Challenge Cup finals. And both of those heavy defeats, unfortunately. Leinster beaten 41-19 by Bordeaux in the Champions Cup final and Ulster's season came to an end on Friday night.
A 59-26 loss at the hands of a sensational Montpellier side in the Challenge Cup final. That is 110-45 to France over Ireland over those two games. Back to the URC this week. Quarterfinals weekend. Connacht away to Glasgow on Friday night. Their Champions Cup place is now secure after Ulster's Challenge Cup final defeat. Munster away to the Bulls on Saturday lunchtime.
Stormers hosting Cardiff and Leinster against the Lions at Aviva Stadium. Sportpodcasts at rt.ie to get in touch and send your emails in. I have Bernard Jackman on the couch today. Gareth Steenson is also with us on the line. Welcome back, Gareth. We've missed you. It's been a while. Were you up to anything for the last couple of months?
Yeah, well, I have seen you a couple of times. Yes, no, been a busy couple of months in with the Irish women. Really enjoyable in the Six Nations. It was good to see the girls going from strength to strength. Good competition in the end. Finishing with three home wins. Good home wins. And obviously, the way it finished there in the Aviva, have 31,000 people there, it was awesome.
So loads of things to build on going forward. You know, it's another global series to look forward to in September and October time. A few games at home to be played as well. So hopefully people can come back out and support the girls.
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Chapter 2: What went wrong for Leinster in the Champions Cup final against Bordeaux?
But yeah, it's been a busy old eight or nine weeks, I'd say.
And obviously you mentioned three very, very good home wins. I know you wanted to pick off one of those away ones. France was probably the one that you'd really targeted. All in all, though, happy with the progress that's been made over the last couple of months.
It is, yeah. No, there's definitely progress. I suppose the biggest thing is, the big thing for girls is we're talking about trying to break into that top four. And that French game was a game we actually targeted. We talked about it for a couple of weeks going into it. But look, we'd made masses of strides.
The only thing was we got across the line, I think, four times in the first half and we just got to put the ball down. And it just becomes a different game. But listen, the progress the girls have made, the confidence they have. And I was delighted just to see the way they performed in that final game. against Scotland in the Aviva.
Just that feeling around getting more people in, kids coming along, supporting them. You're starting to see superstars amongst them as well, which is great to see in the women's game. And listen, it's only going to go from strength to strength, hopefully. So they're on the start of a journey now leading up to that next World Cup.
So hopefully people can get behind the green wave and get some good support in.
Yeah, Bernard, I mean, certainly just even from a crowd point of view, you can see the support that's coming in. The tournament is getting bigger and bigger year on year. And particularly off the back of that English Rugby World Cup, there's still a huge amount to buy in.
Yeah, and in fairness, I have to give credit. We were very hard in the RFU when things were a little bit ropey. But they have invested in bringing coaches like Steno in, marketing really well, open up the Viva Stadium, doing the best they can in terms of contracting. It seems like there's a good environment there.
around the team there's a better pathway obviously the underage Irish selection is getting to play games so it's come a long way in a very short space of time and it's great to see Back to the Aviva again next year Gareth
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Chapter 3: How did the coaching strategies differ between Leinster and Bordeaux?
Hopefully, you know, hopefully, you know, well, the progress that was made there, you know, it'd be nice to see that it keeps going that direction. So hopefully, you know, England and France are coming to town. So hopefully we can get one of those fixtures in there.
Yeah, well, enjoy the bit of time off you have coming up. And obviously it won't be long before you're back into it again for those games in September and October. Let's get straight in with the Champions Cup final. Bordeaux 41, Leinster 19 at San Mames and Bilbao 35-7 at halftime. And Bernard, the big question is, is Ben Tamifuna still on the lash? As of last night, he was.
Yeah, fair play to him. I saw him jumping into the swim pool yesterday with the same jersey he wore in the match. So I'd say, have they changed the water or not? But yeah, look, it's great. It's great to see some of the scenes. I spoke to Noel McNamara yesterday and he said they're an incredible bunch. They're very tight as a group.
And yeah, just trying to get them to slow down a little bit now because obviously they've got a big top 14 game this weekend. They are going to rotate tomorrow. But unfortunately, with some of their performances and results in the top 14, they're actually in a risk of not making the barrage. And it's tough to bounce back from that.
But I think once they do stop drinking and get back training, they'll be absolutely bouncing. And they'll want to taste success again. I mean, Lauren Marti after the game. He's the president and he speaks incredibly well.
And he spoke about the Brennus, you know, that, you know, it's amazing to be back-to-back European champions, but what the Brennus, well, what the Brennus would mean bringing it to Bordeaux. So, yeah, I think it's great to see the celebrations, quality side, quality team. They're not full of world-class players, but that's making it harder to... I suppose, take the way the defeat was.
But they were class players, were war class on the day. And their next range players, their lads with a couple of caps or maybe future internationals or past internationals like Jefferson Porra, they just were immense in terms of individually and collectively.
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Chapter 4: What were the factors leading to Ulster's defeat in the Challenge Cup final?
And it was an amazing coaching performance by Yannick Brew and his coaching staff, Sean Sowerby, and obviously Noel McNamara.
And Gareth, like even going back to your time at Exeter, there's nearly some small parallels even between when you see those celebrations of how Bordeaux have just completely, or the team itself have just almost taken over that city. And I suppose you would have been the big show in town back in Exeter when you were winning premiership titles and that Champions Cup as well.
Well, yeah, but you see the whole community, everybody gets behind you. And I think you can really see that with Bordeaux. And I love the fact that they're celebrating the way they're celebrating. Because, you know, winning trophies is hard. Whenever you actually get to do it, you've got to enjoy it. And the fact that they've went back to back, it just shows you where they're at as a squad.
a bit like what birch was kind of talking about there like you can see yes there is other teams that maybe have a lot more superstars if you want to call it there is a lot of superstars within that team but if you actually look at the way they play they do play a really good brand of rugby their transition the way they can get the balls to these players in the outside space and
They're very infectious the way they play the game and the way rugby's followed in Bordeaux. They're obviously still celebrating. Big Ben's still celebrating. Great for him, but they're going to be wanting to taste more success again. At the end of the day, this is going to be wanting to try and get another trophy in the bag before the end of the season.
And I think the biggest thing about this is you can see what it means to not just the players, but to the supporters, to the city, to everything. And I think that's a really powerful tool. Whenever you go over there to any French team, they're very, very good at getting behind their squad and very good behind them.
And I suppose whenever we had similar sort of feelings when we were at Exeter, you still had that sort of community push behind you. Now, I'd say it's a bigger, it's a bigger animal probably in Bordeaux than it was at Exeter. But listen, I love to see it because that's what rugby is built on. That's the foundations and, The fact that the fellas are still out and celebrating, so they should.
just the demographic of their fans, it's very young. Yeah. And what really, I suppose, stood out to me is the amount of, there's lots of females as well, but there's a huge amount of males between 18 and 30 who are just absolutely locked in.
And I don't know if you saw from the press box, but where I was, I was watching, there was maybe 5,000 of them kind of in the same area and the ultras with the drums. Behind the goal. Yeah, behind the goals. And some of those lads, mainly males, yeah,
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Chapter 5: How are Connacht and Munster preparing for their URC quarter-finals?
never turn around to watch the match. Literally, their whole obsession was get the crowd going. And that was from deadlock in the morning. I don't know if you saw him on the streets. Like, it's across all France. I mean, French fans are absolutely fanatical.
But Bordeaux now, with the scale of the city and the success they're having, and the rock stars, you know, the homegrown guys like Wocky and Jalibert, the Lukus who comes in and just becomes a massive part of that team. You know, he's obviously Basque, Kevin Berittes,
and that mixture and then Damien Pennault obviously coming from Claremont and Big Ben just being an absolute character being a menace off the bench it's it's very very powerful you know and Montpellier are a different type of club they wouldn't be as fanatic of their fans but there is Toulouse there's Bayonne there's Perpignan you know when they're when they're rocking it's just insane
Yeah, their supporters were absolutely incredible on Saturday. I saw the convoy of them coming in at one stage when I was outside the stadium before the match. It was fantastic. Just the noise right through the 80 minutes. On Leinster, though, obviously, you know, The real place you have to start, unfortunately, is that first half, 35-7 down at halftime. They get a perfect start.
19 phases, albeit 19 phases probably isn't ideal to be doing it in the 30 degree heat in the middle of the afternoon. But it was a really good start. All of a sudden you're 35-7 down. It's game over. It's like when you think about the previous finals they lost, the Saracens won, slowly got away from them in a bit of an arm wrestle. The other three went right down to the final minutes of the game.
The real worry about this one was there were no championship minutes where this game was on the line.
Yeah, even the first one, I remember a chance for Guy Ringo to pass, if you remember, that could have got him back in, like there were... They were still there, thereabouts. And it was a rock star, Saracen's team, and a very strong bench that came on and ran amok.
This was, I actually thought this, I know a lot of people said, oh, it's the try and injury time, you know, to go 35-7, that's the game over. I actually felt, unfortunately, 20 minutes in, there was only going to be one winner. Even though the scoreline wasn't out of touch, just Leinster just weren't able to compete. And even, you know, you spoke about how hard they had to work.
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Chapter 6: What lessons can Leinster learn from their recent performance?
I thought Leinster were very, very...
easy to defend against I know that eventually they went to Tommy O'Brien on the edge but I thought the sequence before that I think Bordeaux kind of would have went right they've scored now but we have the power for these lads and we'll win conditions against them and obviously ideally Leinster then needed to spend some time frustrating keeping Bordeaux out but effectively they made a mess of the kick-off they made a mess of the line-out
And, you know, obviously Wookiee got stopped, a good effort by Harry Byrne in the corner, but penalty advantage, come back and they scored soon after. And, yeah, it was a disastrous start from Leinster.
Like, for the team with that experience to not be able to deal with kick-offs and have your set-piece right, the drop ball by Hugo, which is only a small moment, but it's a big moment when it happens. Like Harry Byrne kicking out in the full. There was just a sequence of errors. And yeah, they looked like a team who just weren't ready for the intensity.
And maybe, look, the thing is, if you had a team who didn't have the internationals and hadn't played Six Nations, you can say, oh, they went from... was an easier run, right? The Lions, Ospreys, I mean, they haven't played a really strong opposition for a while. But these lads had played in Six Nations and found a bit of form individually under Farrell.
And then they came back and they looked like they were just picking up nicely, but blown away by a team who had a very, very clear plan about how to take away Leinster's defensive strength and also had a really smart strategy attack-wise as well. And I think from a Leinster point of view, you have to scratch your head and say, well, what did Leinster think was going to happen?
You know, what did they, did they not suspect Bordeaux to do what they did? And where was the kind of planning around that? Did they just try and copy and paste from what they've been doing for the last four weeks and go, that's enough? I think for a line of time, for sure, I thought, I think they'd be very frustrated. Now that's not something new. I think Leinster's line has been,
up and down for a long long time but I think the biggest issue for me was that you're playing against Cameron Wokey and I watch Top 14 pretty much every week I see a lot of Bordeaux and he never has that kind of influence now he didn't get all the turnovers but he put fear into Leinster and made it messy yeah the reason he doesn't have the influence is everybody else is smart enough to go
We're not thrown anywhere near him, right? And they take the ball to the front and they accept the consequences, but they'd rather have the ball. So I was kind of shocked that Leinster didn't predict that or threw kind of into his area a lot. Then lost a bit of confidence and calls and all that stuff. It was just sloppy. It was really sloppy.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of player injuries for Munster's upcoming matches?
And Steno, like one of the things after the game that Leo Cullen mentioned, that Caelan Dorris mentioned, that various players and coaches have mentioned was like not executing, not executing their chances. But when I watched the match back on Monday afternoon, when I was back home, When the game was actually in the balance, they didn't actually have a lot of chances.
Really, they scored from their opening opportunity. The only other real chance they had to do any damage to Bordeaux was a sustained period at, I'm going to say it was 21-7 down. They go through a lot of phases, Jack Kona knocks on the ball. like the missed opportunities they're talking about are coming at 35-7, 35-12, when the game essentially is done at that stage.
There's a lot more to it than not taking your opportunities. Some people have said it was overplaying, going through too many phases, deep out when the weather was like it was. People have mentioned, I know Tyler Blandell mentioned on yesterday's press conference, just they completely lost the kick battle. He referenced between minutes eight and 26.
They just had zero foothold in the game because Bordeaux were taking everything from the kick battle. And I want to bring up the discipline again. I know cards weren't an issue. And it's something we've mentioned a few times now. You look at the penalty count. It's only six penalties against Leinster on the day.
But Bordeaux's opening two tries come off the back of penalty advantages that didn't have to be cashed in. They were also coming on a second penalty where they got into the 22, Leinster gave away a penalty. They're able to take a chance. If they don't score a try, they've got another free shot at going for a score as well. And then the third try came from a penalty entry into the 22 as well.
It's a collection of errors and a collection of malfunctions, isn't it?
So, yeah, it is because everything you're talking about there, it's just something how you just put pressure on a team. And I suppose when they come back and reflect on what they're talking about, trying to like, you know, almost build themselves up going forward. You know, you're talking about the opportunities they took. You're absolutely right.
The opportunities they really got earlier in the game when the game's gone and those types of discipline areas. that just mounts pressure and you add that on top of, you know, the basic areas, you know, the kick out in the full, the catch, all those sort of things.
When you're in the cauldron of a final and you're coming up against a team that's a big, powerful side, you just sort of feel it's all kind of going against you a little bit.
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Chapter 8: What are the expectations for Ulster's performance next season?
And I think then, you know, you're kind of, They probably would have talked a lot about how they could hurt this team. Leinster, traditionally, are a side who can move the ball. They're very clinical in what they do, so they kind of go back to see him. And I think that that kind of actually played into Bordeaux's hands.
It kind of showcased a little bit at the end there with that intercept that actually leads to the try at half-time. It's because they're putting lots of phases together. They're trying to do something at that point to get themselves back into the game. But I think you're right. The more pressure that was put on you, I know it's only six penalties, but those
Those penalties and those, I guess, the side like that, a big, physical, heavy side who just squeeze the life out of you when they can, but has the ability then to exploit you whenever they've got a bit of free licence to do it. So it's obviously a difficult one for Lent. So it was probably masked a little bit by the fact that they've scored very early in the game.
And to go 7-0 up, I think they've kind of...
they maybe just kind of maybe took stock and maybe went well actually this is great this is the way to do it but obviously from that Bordeaux is similar to the game the night before you've seen quick early scores for both teams and then you've just seen the two French teams kind of go right we've kind of got the mask of these lads we know what to do and they just kind of upped their game a little bit and
within minutes that's the thing with French teams within 15-20 minutes they can take the game away from you and then you're chasing shadows and I think that's what probably Leinster probably got shocked a little bit in that 20 minute window which they meant they were just trying to get themselves back in the game and once the game's gone it's easy to see opportunities when the game's gone whenever the opposition are just maybe taking foot off the gas a little bit
I think you'd have to question Leinster's mindset in this competition over the last, not that they don't want to win it because they're there thereabouts every year, but the ability to get over the line. And there's a few little things that I'm going to sort of reference and people can make their own mind out about it. But like, so...
Against Northampton last year, the narrative was, from Leo and stuff, was that people got ahead of themselves. People started looking towards the final. So that's complacency. Now, a couple of weeks ago, we were told that the referee cost him and we didn't mention it in the media that it was a turnover pollock. The referee made him, the referee cost him, but anyway, I think that's super sailed.
Then, that basically the reason they weren't able to win European Cup finals was that this talk of a fifth star became distraction. You know what I mean? Wanting it too much. Wanting it too much, right? I totally don't see how, in my experience of sport, and everyone listening to this would be involved in sport in some way or other, you don't just land with a trophy.
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