Investec Champions Cup Team of the Week: ‘Most influential individual’ of the semi-finals as Bordeaux dominate with monumental ‘behemoth’
Bordeaux's Maxime Lucu (INPHO/Dan Sheridan/EPCR Rugby) and an inset of Leinster's Andrew Porter (INPHO/Nick Elliott/EPCR Rugby).
The Investec Champions Cup semi-final weekend that should have been a celebration of European rugby’s finest narrowly avoided becoming a Toulon-flavoured upset before delivering a more comfortable storyline 24 hours later at Stade Atlantique.
Leinster Rugby scraped past three-time champions RC Toulon 29-25 in Dublin, surviving a 10-minute spell with 13 men and a final assault that ended with Setariki Tuicuvu spilling Gaël Dréan’s offload three metres from glory.
Union Bordeaux Bègles then dispatched Bath Rugby 38-26 in a performance closer to a coronation walk than a knockout test, the holders confirming that Bilbao on 23 May will be a worthy decider. Toulon’s defiance was admirable but largely a collective effort. Bath had moments of beauty without the platform to convert them and UBB will face Leinster in Bilbao at the end of the month.
Investec Champions Cup Team of the Week
15 Santiago Carreras (Bath): The Argentine has split opinion in his first Prem campaign, but on Sunday he delivered the kind of full-back display that justifies Johann van Graan’s persistence. Elite under the high ball in a contest where Bordeaux’s kick-chase tested everyone in red, sky and white, his standout contribution was a covering tackle on Louis Bielle-Biarrey that prevented a certain try and kept Bath within a score for another quarter. A few handling lapses cost him polish but not the position. Runner-up: Hugo Keenan (Leinster). Toulon refused to kick to him but everything he was asked to do was done with the usual class.
14 Tommy O’Brien (Leinster): Already named in some quarters as the form winger in Europe, O’Brien produced arguably his best performance in a Leinster jersey, and that bar is set by some serious rugby. The crunching first-minute hit on Tomás Albornoz that set Toulon back on their heels established the tone, and from there he combined aggressive line-speed, intelligent kick-chase and brave ball-carrying into the kind of complete wing display that transcends the position. Leo Cullen will be praying he is fit for Bilbao. Runner-up: Henry Arundell (Bath). The step that put Will Muir over for the second try was electric, and the last-gasp tackle on Matthieu Jalibert that included a turnover rip showed the rest of his game maturing fast. A mention too for the outstanding Gaël Dréan, who deserved a better outcome for his efforts.
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13 Garry Ringrose (Leinster): Robbie Henshaw’s stretchered exit on 15 minutes left Ringrose to organise Leinster’s defensive shape with a part-time partner inside him, and he responded with the most disciplined rush-defence performance of his season. The try off the back of a flat Jamison Gibson-Park pass was a reward for 40 minutes of organisational work, and his read on the late Tuicuvu break was the moment Leinster’s nerves finally settled. Runner-up: Damian Penaud (UBB). Slowly evolving into a genuinely interesting centre option, with a slick early break that unsettled Bath’s whole defensive shape.
12 Yoram Moefana (UBB): Bordeaux’s title defence is built on a midfield that does the unglamorous work superbly, and Moefana was the architect against Bath. The line-breaking sit-down on Guy Pepper that effectively ended the Bath openside’s contest told you most of what you needed to know about his physical superiority, but the more interesting work was tactical. He shut Finn Russell down for 60 minutes, denying the playmaker any room to threaten the channel between ten and twelve. Runner-up: Ollie Lawrence (Bath). Carried hard and brought others into the game with some clever offloads on the gainline, although a few decisions in traffic were questionable.
11 Will Muir (Bath): Bath’s best player on the pitch, Muir scored two tries and was on his way to a third when a suspected broken arm forced him off. The first finish, gathering Ben Spencer’s perfectly weighted crossfield kick, was technically excellent. The second, crashing through Maxime Lucu’s tackle to score one-handed in the corner after Arundell’s electric break, was the kind of moment that gets shown on highlight reels for a generation. Aerially dominant, defensively dogged, and the only Bath player who looked entirely comfortable. Runner-up: Louis Bielle-Biarrey (UBB). His 29th try in 27 games came with his first touch of the ball, although he spilled enough later in the game to dent the gloss.
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10 Matthieu Jalibert (UBB): The Bordeaux 10 finished as his side’s top line-breaker, top defender-beater and top offloader, and he barely needed to play his expansive game to do it. Tactical kicking pinned Bath in their own twenty-two for long passages, and the half-break that almost yielded a 30-metre solo try would have been the score of the season. The recurring criticism that Jalibert vanishes in big knockout games has now lost most of its evidence base. Runner-up: Finn Russell (Bath). The defensive afternoon was, in the politest possible reading, a serious problem, but the attacking touches were genuine and his goal-kicking kept Bath in the contest.
9 Maxime Lucu (UBB): The most influential individual performance of the weekend by a clear margin and our Player of the Week. A try, two assists, two jackal steals at the breakdown, and a passing tempo that Bath could neither slow nor read. The Bordeaux scrum-half is the player most likely to determine whether Bilbao becomes a Bordeaux retention or a Leinster fifth star, and his current form makes the holders rightful favourites. Lucu was, however, fortunate to escape any sort of sanction for a head-on-head collision with Barbeary that the officials chose not to revisit, the second piece of leniency shown to the holders on a difficult afternoon for the touch judges following Adam Coleman’s earlier escape on the same player. Runner-up: Gibson-Park (Leinster). Again, the brain behind Leinster’s better attacking moments, and the Lucu against JGP duel will define the final.
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8 Caelan Doris (Leinster): The Leinster captain absorbed everything Toulon threw at him for 60 minutes and then provided the killer touch with the offload that put Ringrose over for the third try. Doris’ reading of the late Toulon surge, when most of Leinster’s senior figures had been forced off, kept the comeback from becoming a defeat. Runner-up: Alfie Barbeary (Bath). The visitors’ outstanding forward on the day, the constant focal point as Bath sought to drag the contest back, and on the receiving end of two pieces of Bordeaux’s foul play that escaped sanction. Marko Gazzotti‘s two-minute opener for Bordeaux ran him close.
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7 Cameron Woki (UBB): Woki’s two lineout steals against Tom Dunn’s throw made the structural difference in a contest where Bath needed set-piece launchpads to release Russell. Beyond the visible thefts, his connecting work in defence and his anticipation around the breakdown were the foundation on which Bordeaux’s defensive line could afford to fly up. Runner-up: Josh van der Flier (Leinster). A try and a key carry inside the opening half-hour before being forced off injured. Sam Underhill‘s turnover off the Bath bench was the only other serious case.
6 Pierre Bochaton (UBB): Barbeary and Pepper went into Sunday with reputations as two of the most destructive ball-carrying back-rowers in northern hemisphere club rugby. Barbeary was outstanding throughout, prominent in every passage as Bath threatened to bend the game back into shape, but he was rarely allowed to generate the front-foot ball his backline needed, and Pepper was eventually subdued altogether. Bochaton was the principal reason. The Bordeaux flank hunted in straight lines, made his hits dominant, and refused to let either Bath forward dictate the breakdown. Pure positive aggression, and a performance that suggests France have a genuine six waiting in the wings to apply pressure on Charles Ollivon’s recent grip on the jersey. Runner-up: Jack Conan (Leinster). A pumped-up performance from a man who appears to save his best for the biggest occasions. Crashed over for the opening try after Van der Flier’s break, carried relentlessly in traffic, and only departed because he had genuinely emptied the tank.
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5 David Ribbans (Toulon): The South African-born England lock was central to the Toulon set-piece that genuinely threatened Leinster’s passage to Bilbao, outmuscling both Irish locks at moments and offering the sort of physical edge that turned a routine semi-final into the closest thing to a Pyrrhic victory the holders are likely to experience this season. The lineout work was sharp, the maul drive in the closing fifteen minutes nearly produced the winning try, and his eighty-minute contribution explains why this Toulon side could yet emerge as a genuine title threat next season under Pierre Mignoni’s continuing rebuild. Runner-up: James Ryan (Leinster). Worked his usual unrelenting shift in a forward battle where Leinster were under genuine pressure throughout, contributed several big collisions in the closing exchanges, and was unlucky to be held up over the line.
4 Adam Coleman (UBB): 20 successful tackles in 80 minutes from a 34-year-old lock is a statistical line that usually belongs to a much younger flanker. Coleman tore apart Bath’s maul, made several decisive interventions close to his own line, and gave the visitors no quarter at the breakdown. His debatable hit on Barbeary that escaped sanction will frustrate the English audience, but the wider performance was monumental. Runner-up: Joe McCarthy (Leinster). The first-half strip on Mikheil Shioshvili that flipped the field for Conan’s opening try was the highest-impact single moment by any second row across the weekend, even if McCarthy was less dominant in the carry than we have seen this season.
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Andrew Porter dispels doubts
3 Ben Tameifuna (UBB): Off the bench but utterly decisive. The behemoth’s monumental finish in the 69th minute effectively sealed the game, and the wider impact in the carry and at the scrum was what allowed Bordeaux to absorb Bath’s late pressure without anxiety. As passionate a servant as the Bordeaux project has, and a finisher in every sense of the word. Runner-up: Tom Clarkson (Leinster). A coming-of-age performance against Jean-Baptiste Gros, out-scrummaging one of the form looseheads in Europe and contributing seven tackles and six carries. Tameifuna’s match-winning finish edges him in. Honourable mention to Thomas du Toit, who again gave Bath a tighthead presence among Europe’s best and held a difficult Bordeaux scrum out for long passages.
2 Dan Sheehan (Leinster): Steady at the set-piece in a Leinster lineout that functioned beautifully despite the pressure of a forward battle Toulon were determined to dominate, alert to the tap penalty that yielded Van der Flier’s try, and dependable around the fringes. Sheehan did not get to impact the loose game in his usual ball-carrying fashion, although the work-rate and diligence in defence were standout contributions in a tight contest where Leinster’s hooker simply needed to win the small moments rather than the big ones. Job done, on a day when job done was the requirement. Runner-up: Maxime Lamothe (UBB). Ran a smooth Bordeaux lineout in the very area where Bath had the clearest pre-match advantage, his throwing was clean throughout, and the maul was steered with intelligence to give Lucu and Jalibert the platform from which to orchestrate.
1 Andrew Porter (Leinster): The official man of the match in Dublin and the obvious choice on this side of the scrum. Porter dispelled the doubts that had gathered during his injury layoff with a complete loosehead performance: dominant against Kyle Sinckler in the scrum, abrasive at the breakdown, and the source of the turnover that led to Conan’s opening try. The yellow card for the high tackle on Charles Ollivon costs him half a mark on a fastidious reading of the law, although everything else was as good as anyone in his position has produced this season. Runner-up: Matis Perchaud (UBB). 16 successful tackles and a credible scrum tussle with Du Toit. Solid rather than spectacular, but solid was enough to make the cut in a weekend short of standout looseheads.