They were not given much of a chance – and sure enough, for most of the match they did not have one. But Northampton, having looked completely lost in front of the 82,000 spectators at Croke Park, burst into life in the final quarter to give Leinster something of a scare.
The home side, though, are too packed to the rafters with international quality to have lost from such a position. They have had their wobbles in the recent past, but letting slip a 20-3 lead early in the first half would really have been too painful to contemplate. As it is, with James Lowe – one of the very best players in the Six Nations, let alone the Champions Cup – bagging a hat-trick, they march on to London for the final at the end of the month.
“We made a lot of mistakes,” said Courtney Lawes, Northampton’s captain, “and you can’t win at the highest level if you do that. But on the plus side we were able to push one of the best teams in the world.”
One of the best teams or not, Leinster are not infallible. A little less than a year ago the other side of the river, Leinster galloped off to a 17-0 lead against La Rochelle in last season’s final at the Aviva Stadium, only to lose. They did not quite start as riotously as that, but a 12-0 lead in the first quarter of an hour posed Northampton a big problem.
The Saints were as complicit in the problem-setting as Leinster were proactive. Both positions from which Lowe scored his two early tries came courtesy of Northampton errors.
James Ramm fumbled deep in the corner, and Leinster set up camp from the resultant scrum. Northampton conceded a penalty during the siege, which Jamison Gibson-Park tapped. He flung a loopy pass to Lowe out wide, who ran clean through Alex Mitchell and Ramm for the opening try.
That was after 10 minutes of play. His second came within five of that. This time Fin Smith was guilty of a careless error, his pass intercepted by Ross Byrne to set up more pressure and force the Saints into the concession of another penalty. Byrne went for the corner, Caelan Doris peeled off the driven lineout to go for the line and from his flip-up Gibson-Park managed to fashion another pass out wide to Lowe, who scored at his leisure.
Northampton looked lost. Handling errors plagued their every move. Not until a minute from the break did we see anything of the slick attacking with which they have lit up the Premiership.
By that time a Byrne penalty on the half-hour had furthered their pain, Trevor Davison deemed to have collapsed a scrum in front of Northampton’s own posts, but a smooth move in midfield might have put Ramm away. Alas, he overran George Furbank inside him and could not quite take in his pass. Still, Leinster had conceded a penalty themselves, and Smith slotted it to put the visitors on the board.