The Finals weekend in the EPCR competitions provided what we thought it would - a Hollywoodbets Sharks win in Friday night’s curtain-raiser followed by the drama and emotion of the real deal, the Investec Champions Cup final.
The Sharks belong in the Champions Cup. There’s no doubt about that. You don’t have as many World Cup winning Springboks as the Durban franchise has on its books and not play for the main prize.
That was how close it was between elation and despair for a Leinster team that has the bulk of the Ireland team in it. But Toulouse turned the screws even though they lost Richie Arnold to a red card and because they had toughed it out over the first 80 minutes and then, like La Rochelle had done two years in a row against the same opponents, capitalised on their momentum at the end, it ended up with them being the deserved winners.
This time around it isn’t like that. On Saturday they play one final league game against a Connacht side that has much less to play for after being defeated by the DHL Stormers last time out. Leinster are at home, and while position in the top four is important, they can’t drop out of the top four. So they can afford to rest those players that need to be rested.
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