'Risk' of failure still worth it for Leinster captain James Ryan after latest Champions Cup loss

As sick Leinster as feel after losing a third successive Investec Champions Cup final, the motivation to get there will never dim, according to captain James Ryan.

If not 'try again, fail again, fail better', the lock, speaking after their 31-22 loss to Toulouse at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, was defiant when asked if the fallout from the La Rochelle defeats in 2022 and 2023 had weighed heavily on the team’s mind, in particular, on a nervy start to proceedings.

"I’m not sure, to be honest. I don’t think so," the 27-year-old lock told RTÉ Sport.

"It’s just tough. I don’t know how to answer that.

"What we said in the changing room was, when you want to do great things and you want to achieve great things, you always want the risk of failing greatly as well, do you know what I mean?

"Would I rather be in a team that tries to be the best team in Europe every year and have risks in a team like this? I still would.

"That’s part of trying to do special things, but as I said, you run the risk of feeling like this, but that’s the way we are.

"We want to win trophies and there’s a lot more hurt now, but as Leo (Cullen) said, we just have to bounce back. That’s the way it is.

"Bounce back in another competition to go after, and hopefully do as well as we can in that."

The sides were tied at 15-15 after a try-less 80 minutes and scored one apiece in extra-time. However, Thomas Ramos took advantage of poor Leinster discipline to add three penalties to their tally.

Cullen (above) is no stranger to the mandatory post-match ritual of trying to put feelings from another devastating defeat into words.

"That’s the nature of sport at the top and obviously we’ve been on the losing side, unfortunately, on a few occasions now," he said.

"You get this