Everyone was impressed with Leinster’s huge knock-out wins over Harlequins and Glasgow Warriors, none more so than Northampton’s director of rugby Phil Dowson.
The Saints stunned Leinster in Saturday’s Investec Champions Cup semi-final in Dublin in one of the tournament’s all-time classic encounters, relying heavily on the evidence provided when Leo Cullen’s men hammered Harlequins 62-0 and URC champions Glasgow 52-0.
Questions were raised about how much Leinster would learn about themselves after games in which their opponents’ desire and belief appeared less than optimum.
But Dowson and attack coach Sam Vesty poured over the matches and came up with a plan to combat Jacques Nienaber’s fierce defence, which had not conceded a try in 200 minutes, including the second half of their pool game against English Premiership leaders Bath in Europe before Saturday’s clash.
Saints, who won the Premiership last season, proceeded to run in five tries, four in the first half and held firm to dig out a famous 37-34 victory and extend Leinster’s Euro drought to an eight season.
Dowson told RTÉ Sport: “I’ve got a huge amount of respect for [Glasgow Warriors boss] Franco Smith and what he does with Glasgow as an attacking team, likewise Quins [coaches], Billy Mallard and Danny Wilson, they’re good attacking teams and to be nilled was stark.
“It wasn’t anything that we changed particularly. We’ve played against Exeter, who have a very strong blitz [defence].
“And there are certain things in our game that are flexed when that happens; our ethos, our game plan doesn’t change per se.
“We talked about playing through the press, understanding when we are on the back foot, all those elements, shortening the passes up, ball in the air.
“We talked about them, then we trained them then we executed them, then we put them under pressure, then we did it again, effectively.
“Those games gave us an idea of what Leinster were trying to do and what in our game [could combat that].
“Fin [Smith said], ‘here’s what they do, this is what’s important for Saints do to’.
“What does that change? It doesn’t change how we play the game, it changes small nuances around our attacking shape.”
The visitors were also helped by Leinster’s poor tackling, with the stats showing they only completed 69%.
“There will be a bit of head scratching there in terms of some of our mentality around defence and were we really clued in enough for some of the threats Northampton have,” said Leinster head coach Cullen.
“We’ve seen them attack. The players have seen them, they know, but that’s a big score to concede in a play-off game.”
Of their failure to get over the line again, Cullen referenced the previous three years’ finals, in which Leinster lost narrowly.
“Quite often when you fall behind we get a little bit jittery and we’re not quite accurate enough in some of the things we do and we compound errors,” he said.
“You can’t take anything away from [Northampton], the way they set out their stall.
“Some of the things they executed, how clinical they were and even they came up with a way to hold us out at the end.
“I’m not sure how they managed to do it but they managed to do it.”
Leinster face Zebre in the BKT United Rugby Championship on Saturday knowing that a win will cement top spot and a home passage in the knock-out stages.
“Unfortunately, [the Champions Cup is] dead and buried now,” said the former Ireland lock.
“All we can turn our attention to is the next challenge which is back to the URC. We play Zebre here next week, we need to try finish top of the log.”
