When Independent.ie's Rugby Show sat down this week to preview Saturday's Investec Champions Cup final between Leinster and Bordeaux-Begles in Bilbao, the discussion opened with a small joke about a missing French connection in the other final. "The only team that let me down was Bristol," Ian Madigan said. "Needed Bristol in the final against Ulster, but wasn't to be."
Madigan, who played for Bordeaux in 2016-17 as the club was just rebuilding from second-division obscurity, will be on commentary for Saturday's 2:45pm decider — a club where, as Joe Molloy put it, "they're calling it the Ian Madigan derby." The bigger story, though, is the burden Leinster carry into a fifth consecutive final.
Rory O'Connor framed it bluntly: "They're seven-point underdogs and yet there's still a burden of those past finals that potentially weighs on them. They feel like a lot of them are getting to the point where it's not quite now or never, but they know how hard it is to get back to this point every year. Each of the finals has left some sort of scar tissue. The semi-finals they've lost along the way have arguably had even more, certainly last year."
The contrast in atmosphere is being felt before kickoff. "It didn't feel fever pitch," O'Connor said of Leinster's run-in. "There isn't much excitement about this version of Leinster versus Bordeaux, who sold out their semi-final, 42,000 in two hours and they are so in on this team." Madigan agreed: "It's an unusual dynamic. Bordeaux have had no issues selling out with a week to sell out a game. Rugby in France is just through the roof at the moment."
Madigan also addressed Leo Cullen's much-discussed post-Toulon press conference, where the head coach took aim at the media and positioned Leinster as underdogs against a Bordeaux side stacked with 12 French internationals plus Kane Doris and Rico Ioane. "I'm like, Leo knows that he is under pressure and that the team is under pressure and he's going to go out on his shield here. He's going to go out swinging, and it does hinge on this final. Leinster win this game on Saturday and suddenly you're going, well, they've won two in the last 10 and no one has been in more finals. You could argue that they've dominated the last 10 years of this competition. They lose and you're the nearly men."
O'Connor was less convinced by the strategy. "I think he's constructed a narrative in a Rassie Erasmus style way, which is his right. We're all big boys and girls in the press room. Getting a kicking is fine. Where we're happy to criticise Leo, we have to be able to take it the same way." But the most revealing Cullen quote, he suggested, was the one about Leinster's players going into their shell in the closing minutes. "He said: I think sometimes the players think this is too important to them, that the size of the prize inhibits their performance."
The tactical thread came back to the Nienaber-McNamara matchup — defence coach versus attack coach, both currently inside the global elite. Madigan said the obvious answer of beating Leinster's rush by going wide is too obvious. "I think Noel McNamara is going to have a different plan. I think he's going to look to use deception and change of running lines. And when you're coming so hard off the line, as Leinster will be, it's very hard to move laterally. I think he's going to try and challenge Leinster in that space to then get arms free, create offload opportunities."
The headline pressure point inside the Leinster XV is Harry Byrne's goal-kicking after his Toulon semi-final wobble. "Bordeaux fans will look at it as the weak point of that team because of his relative lack of experience," O'Connor said. "If he comes out the end of this, think of how his stock will have risen by 5pm on Saturday evening if he nails this moment. If he doesn't, it'll be a big moment in his career and in his life."
The forecast: 25-26 degrees and sunshine in Bilbao, with both pundits anticipating a tight scoreline above 20 points each. Madigan picked Leinster on emotional desperation; O'Connor leaned Bordeaux on a slight edge in personnel. "Bordeaux's strengths can hurt Leinster's weaknesses," he said. "But I think Leinster have a really really good chance.
