Bok wings crowned two-time Euro champs

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Dillyn Leyds and Raymond Rhule claimed winners’ medals as La Rochelle launched a stunning fightback to beat Leinster and retain the Champions Cup in Dublin on Saturday.

Springbok wingers Leyds and Rhule, who helped La Rochelle lift a maiden European title last season, featured prominently in an exhilarating 27-26 win at the Aviva Stadium.

Bok lock Jason Jenkins played off the bench for Leinster, while South African referee Jaco Peyper blew the game and made several big calls, notably yellow cards for hooker Ronan Kelleher and centre Jonathan Danty, as well as a straight red to Michael Ala’alatoa in the final 10 minutes of an epic clash in the Irish capital.

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La Rochelle clawed back from 17-0 down to edge out Leinster. Replacement prop Georges-Henri Colombe crossed in the 72nd minute as the French side triumphed in a rerun of last season’s final.

Leo Cullen’s Leinster eyed joining Toulouse on a record five titles but Ireland veteran Johnny Sexton watched on from the crowd due to an injury, denying him a final game for the Irish province.

In front of a sea of home fans, Leinster made the best start possible as hooker Dan Sheehan opened the scoring from a smart lineout move after just 41 seconds.

Ross Byrne, standing in for 37-year-old Sexton, added the conversion to make it 7-0, with the Irish supporters in full voice even with the overcast conditions in front of 51,000 in Dublin.

Their dominance continued as they led 17-0, with winger Jimmy O’Brien scoring and Sheehan claiming his second by the quarter mark thanks to their clinical attack inside La Rochelle’s 22m and almost perfect defence.

Thirty seconds before Sheehan’s double, La Rochelle scrumhalf Tawera Kerr-Barlow was shown a yellow card.

La Rochelle’s reaction came on 20 minutes as Danty crashed through three defenders to score from short range but the French joy was short-lived.

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Byrne kicked two penalties to make it 23-7 after half an hour, either side of Kerr-Barlow’s return from the sin bin as Leinster captain James Ryan left the field with a head injury.

With two minutes left of the first half, Ronan O’Gara’s French side cut the deficit to 23-14 as Samoa centre UJ Seuteni sliced through Leinster’s defence after some trademark powerful carries from lock Will Skelton and prop Uini Atonio.

After the break, Antoine Hastoy kicked two penalties either side of a Byrne effort to make it 26-20 with half an hour to play as French fans around the ground found their voice. Going into the closing quarter of an hour the tension mounted and Hastoy found touch with a penalty five metres from the Irish line.

With eight minutes remaining, and after countless pick and goes, Colombe bundled over for the French side. Hastoy’s conversion made it 27-26 and La Rochelle led for the first time of the enthralling encounter.

After Danty was sin-binned for a high tackle, Byrne kicked the ball within 20 metres of La Rochelle’s whitewash. Inches from the French line and with Leinster on top, Ala’alatoa was sent off with less than two minutes remaining for a dangerous clear-out on Colombe.

With 15 seconds over the 80 minutes Hastoy kicked the ball dead to end the final and give La Rochelle back-to-back title triumphs.

© Agence France-Presse

Photo: Anne-Christine POUJOULAT/ AFP

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