Sense of deja vu will haunt beaten Leinster the most

If you tried to sum up Saturday's Heineken Champions Cup final in a sentence, you'd make little or no sense.

Leinster were played off the park, but yet they still should have won. They led for 70 of the 80 minutes, but had they won they'd have stolen it. Nobody ever said sport and logic were joined at the hip.

To make a further contradiction, Leinster conceded three tries to nil, were tormented by wingers Raymond Rhule and Dillyn Leyds, yet had they won their defence would have been heralded as the reason they did it.

Their desperate, frenetic, aggressive tackling in the final quarter of an hour was incredible at times, the irony being that when their line was finally breached by Arthur Retiere for the most famous try in La Rochelle's history, it was a result of him losing his footing and falling out of the way of Garry Ringrose's tackle.

On 68 minutes and 41 seconds Ihaia West kicked a penalty down into the corner, and the remainder of the game was played entirely within 10 metres of the Leinster tryline. The four-time champions never touched the ball for the rest of the game, making countless tackles but giving up penalties, as La Rochelle picked and drove, and picked and drove, and picked and drove. Ronan O'Gara laughed that they seemed to carry the ball 150 times in that mammoth stand. He might not have been far wrong.

Had Leinster's defence caved earlier, they'd have only been three points behind with a few minutes on the clock to chase it. It would take a brave and foolish person to suggest letting La Rochelle walk one in though.

As much as La Rochelle dominated from a rugby perspective, there were more than enough missed opportunities that Leinster will feel sick to have let slide.

Their handling and passing was nowhere