Earning a record number of spots on the British & Irish Lions squad seemed like both a blessing and a challenge for Leinster as they aimed for success in the United Rugby Championship (URC) playoffs.
Jamison Gibson-Park, along with Hugo Keenan and Tadhg Furlong, joined injured captain Caelan Doris in watching from the sidelines during Saturday’s final. Even with so many key players unavailable, the team still managed to secure their first trophy in four seasons.
Their desire for victory outweighed this major setback. While many of them have celebrated achievements at the Test level, 15 of the players on Saturday’s match-day roster in their 32-7 victory over the Bulls at Croke Park hadn’t played in the 2021 Grand Final win against Munster at an empty Aviva Stadium.
Dan Sheehan was among those 15, and since he had only started two games in that 2020-21 season, this felt like his first real winners’ medal for the team.
“This is the first one I truly feel part of,” he shared. “I’ve thought about it over the past couple of years because you work really hard throughout the season and spend most of your time with this group, which hasn’t changed much.
“The hunger was definitely there today, and you could see that right from the start. It was incredibly enjoyable and rewarding. The feeling after the final whistle for Cian Healy, Ross (Byrne),
Liam (Turner), and Rob (Russell), as well as all the guys leaving us—it gives us a boost and helps lift a weight off our shoulders.”
Talking about the Lions players from Leinster, Sheehan said, “As a group, we were really eager to win a title and get the URC trophy, so we moved on from that pretty quickly.
The Lions didn’t reach out to us at all, which is exactly what we wanted. This allowed us to focus entirely on the URC. We understood that we had a job to do and needed to concentrate just on the URC. If you look too far ahead, you might make mistakes.
I think we handled it well as a group by addressing it early. When the Lions squad was first announced, we made sure to congratulate them and then say, ‘Alright, let’s move forward – we’re fully committed to this.’
Since we are the biggest contributors to the Lions team, it feels much better to meet our new teammates in Dublin this week as URC champions instead of dealing with another near-miss.
“Yeah, it would have been disappointing to go into camp without anything after missing the first two weeks. But now that we have the medal, we’ll enjoy tonight and hopefully celebrate tomorrow,” said Sheehan as he looked forward to the festivities and goodbyes.”
With 46,127 fans showing up on just six days’ notice, the final had an impressive atmosphere. The crowd was fully engaged with every detail of the game and the special event, especially when Ross Byrne entered the match in the 69th minute and received a warm welcome.
It was perfect that Byrne ended his time with a try assist for Fintan Gunne. He capped off his scoring by successfully making a conversion kick in his last game for Leinster before moving to Gloucester.
Over the past ten years, Leinster’s third-highest points scorer raised his total to 1,196. The cheers for that conversion were louder than usual. When the players got their medals, Byrne received the biggest cheer from the audience.
“Ross is an amazing player and a true professional. No one else in our team drives standards like he does,” Sheehan said. “I think he has faced unfair criticism over the last decade, but he doesn’t let it bother him. He simply keeps pushing forward. He loves Leinster, enjoys winning, and cares about our team. I felt happy for him today.”
“He got a great reception from the fans and will be greatly missed in the locker room as someone who helps us achieve our goals with high expectations, much like Johnny Sexton does by being tough on what we expect from each other and holding people accountable. Plus, he’s a wonderful person off the field too.”
