Caelan Doris was supposed to be the Leinster captain whose ceiling justified the captaincy. For long stretches of this season, that ceiling went missing. The Knock-On Effect podcast believes the Toulon semi-final, a 29-25 win in Dublin, was the first reminder in months of the player Doris can still be when the lights are at their brightest.
Reviewing the match in a video titled "Were Leinster Lucky?", the Knock-On Effect host argued that Leinster's progress to the Champions Cup final in Bilbao came in spite of, rather than because of, their kicking game. The big positive was Doris.
The host had been "incredibly critical" of the captain previously, suggesting Doris had only intermittently hit the level he reached on Ireland's tour of New Zealand before the last Rugby World Cup. Against Toulon, the carrying that has long been Doris's biggest asset reappeared in full: footwork that forces defenders to commit, then a pre-planned attack on the soft shoulder.
"His try was a huge turning point in the game which helped secure another Champions Cup final for Leinster," the host noted, while pointing out that Doris's all-round performance — vicious tackler, lineout operator, ball carrier — recalled the leader Leinster had not seen consistently since 2023.
The flip side was Harry Byrne. Picked at out-half ahead of Sam Prendergast, the Knock-On Effect rated Byrne as the safer of Leinster's two options on the day, but a long way short of Mr. Reliable. Two penalties and a conversion went begging from the tee, and the host argued that had Toulon scored one more try, Leinster would have lost.
The host suggested Byrne does not have enough X-factor to cover those off days, and that "his usual seven-and-a-half-out-of-ten performances" become problematic when they slip below average. The verdict on Prendergast was even blunter — the host suggested he still cannot tackle to the standard a Leinster ten needs.
That left an open question the Knock-On Effect believes Leinster cannot keep deferring: whether the chequebook needs to come out for an out-half next year, given that this is now a fixture issue rather than a one-game blip.
Discipline in the pack was a separate concern. Two more yellow cards on top of recent indiscretions left Leinster down to 13 men around half-time, but the response — coming out swinging and scoring a try of their own in that period — was singled out as the most impressive feature of the win.
"Leinster have just gone a long way in laying down a big marker here," the host said of a scrum that posted an 86 per cent win rate from seven scrums against Toulon's 75 per cent from four. With Andrew Porter and Paddy McCarthy at loosehead, Furlong and Tom Clarkson at tighthead, and Dan Sheehan and Ronan Kelleher at hooker, the depth chart up front looks like the deepest in the competition.
The host accepted the wider scepticism that has greeted Leinster's run to a ninth Champions Cup final. Leo Cullen's squad rotation drew direct criticism — described as "even more reluctant than the likes of Andy Farrell" — and the broader argument was that Leinster have stuttered over the finish line more often this season than in the previous five combined.
Luck was credited to a softer route to the final, with the Knock-On Effect arguing an away trip to Bath or Toulouse might have been a step too far. But the verdict on the Toulon performance itself was unequivocal: "There wasn't a damn thing lucky about that. That was all grit, determination and attitude."
Whether that grit is enough to beat reigning champions Bordeaux-Begles in Bilbao is, as the Knock-On Effect put it, a conversation for another day. The more immediate question is whether Doris can string together the kind of monthly consistency Leinster needed from him a year ago, and whether Cullen finally trusts his out-half conundrum to a long-term answer rather than a different bench mix every weekend.
