Sometimes the planets align in sports. For example, the two best golfers in the world start together in the final round of an open championship or two outstanding thoroughbreds thunder neck to neck on the straight at Ascot. The champion deserves to be celebrated as something special, but in truth the quality is so collectively good that everyone wins.
It could be one of those more perfect rugby union days this weekend. Toulouse and Leinster have already participated in a record seven Champions Cup finals each and won the ultimate trophy in the club’s game nine times together. French aristocrats own the best player in the world in Antoine Dupont and ooze class and pedigree in equal amounts. Leinster will be represented at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium by most of the Irish teams that have governed the Six Nations tournament.
Mix these high-quality ingredients, set them up in an impressive modern stadium in one of the big cities of the world and the only harmful is to be suffocated by exaggerated expectations. Apart from the fact that both teams had enough big matches not to panic too much, and the weather forecast on Saturday is also encouraging. In terms of profile, it is as close to a dream final as the organizers could have asked for.
Whether this will convince the youth of North London to exchange a round ball for an oval is another matter, but at least on paper this is a game with a more global resonance than any other in the history of the tournament in 27 seasons. Brive, Bath, Ulster, Northampton, Leicester, Wasps, Munster, Toulon, Saracens, Exeter and La Rochelle are all former champions with their own proudly different identities, but none have the current appeal of this year’s two finalists.
Leinster drew 82,300 people to its semi-final at Croke Park and sold all the tickets within a few hours. Toulouse has a total budget, the largest in France. When one of your players sneezes, someone rushes to social media to share the news. Big is not always beautiful, but this action of heavyweight titans is another matter.
Take, for example, Dupont and its counterpart Jamison Gibson-Park. These two don’t rock their respective sides so much that they run the entire watch shop. Watching Dupont, after an incredibly intense World Cup and a high-profile mid-season switch at seven, playing with Exeter in the quarter-finals had to convince us more that we are in the presence of someone redefining real-time rugby.
Gibson-Park is a different, but equally attentive type of player, be it the possibility of an attempt of a colleague’s inside ball breaking the line, or a potential place for his teammate James Lowe. When the Leinster is at its smoothest, it is at the heart of everything that is buzzing and probing, especially since the retirement of the great Johnny Sexton.
In addition to the two brilliant catalysts in the scrum-half position, there are also three other Leinster players on the shortlist for this year’s “Player of the Year” award. Lowe is not surprising after another extremely influential campaign with the equally proactive Caelan Doris and Dan Sheehan. Observe both of them and be amazed at their abilities, mobility and pace of work, and then realize that you are only 26 and half years old, respectively.
The tasty confrontations follow: Sheehan against Peato Mauvaka and Tadhg Furlong against Cyril Gaille in the front row, the Englishman Jack Willis against Josh van der Flier in a breakdown. Blair Kinghorn played and kicked wonderfully for Toulouse; could he be the joker who ends up sinking the lofty Irish ambitions after being Scotland’s catcher at the World Cup?
However, it is the way both parties play in the same way as the people involved that really sets them apart. Both can be body, fast and relentless, but most importantly, they are intelligent and can switch gears at lightning speed. Beware of the rapid line-ups of Toulouse, Mauvaka or Dupont against unsuspecting defenders and the lightning defense of Leinster led by Jacques Nienaber. South Africa pushed France out of their Own World Cup last autumn, and if Nienaber can make a number on the stadium’s strong action this weekend, it will really be an impressive double.