The Leinster players fell to the floor, battered, beaten, broken. For a third year in a row, the Dubliners had come up short on European rugby’s biggest stage, edged out once again by French opposition. Around the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the Toulouse fans bounced and sang their tunes of triumph, joined in the songs of victory by those of their exhausted heroes still left able to stand.
This competition has seen plenty of fabulous finals over the decades but never anything quite like this. Over 100 nerve-shredding minutes, these two contested one of the great games, a battle of brutal, brilliant beauty.
