Leinster lose out once again as Toulouse win sixth Champions Cup

Heartache for Leinster. Again.

That the team are well used to post-mortems of this nature won't make the dissection of this defeat any easier.

Leo Cullen's side became the first team to lose four Investec Champions Cup finals, including the last three in a row, as they fell to a 31-22 defeat to Toulouse at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

The French champions were too smart, too clinical when it mattered and Leinster failed to reach anything close to their best in a game that went into extra time.

Leinster never led throughout the affair and Ugo Mola’s side, with man of the match Antoine Dupont superb, earned a record extending sixth star in front of 61,531 fans in London.

After impressing along the way to the final, beating defending champions La Rochelle twice, Leinster must once again go back to the drawing board to find a way to bridge a six-year gap to their last European win.

Ross Byrne and Ciarán Frawley kicked the penalties for Leinster, while Blair Kinghorn and Thomas Ramos fired over for Toulouse as the game ended 15-15 after 80 minutes.

James Lowe was in the sin-bin when Mathis Lebel got the first try of the game, and while Josh van der Flier hit back for Leinster, they were too ill-disciplined, and the accurate boot of Ramos steered Toulouse over the line.

It was nothing if not a nervy start from Leinster and they struggled to find a rhythm amidst numerous handling errors and sloppy passes.

They survived an early scare when Jamison Gibson-Park dragged Dupont into touch close to the tryline before he could get his pass away.

Toulouse got the first score on the board when Jamie Osborne was penalised after carrying the ball into traffic and Kinghorn found his target from the halfway line.

The same centre again got penalised