Leinster coach Leo Cullen lamented the end of the Blues season following a shock single-point defeat to Bulls at the RDS.
It has taken just three weeks to rip the heart out of his players' nine-month effort, firstly losing the Heineken Champions Cup final to La Rochelle in Marseille and, now, losing the URC semi-final to Bulls.
What had turned into an odds-on bet for a European and domestic triumph is now a doubly-beaten docket.
Cullen’s disappointment even went a little deeper last night in that they had been beaten by a South African franchise playing typical South African rugby - they had known what to expect.
“You see the South African teams play, they don't change much,”shrugged Cullen.
“They are very cohesive, they don't make many changes in the course of the year, they do what they do and aren't trying to hide anything but they're effective at what they do.”
Leinster had even opened so well, they won a line-out and, on the back of an excellent rolling maul, put pressure on the Bulls line. They won a penalty at the first scrum. Dan Sheehan crosses to put them 7-0 ahead.
“We start the game okay but we get ourselves into trouble a few times with when we lose the ball in the ruck.
“That's probably the big thing in terms of how we go about playing the game so that's probably the biggest thing that's sort of sticking in my mind at the moment.
“Because there was actually moments in the La Rochelle game as well where if you give away a turnover at the ruck there's a huge territory game for the opposition.
“The Bulls were good and clinical when they get down our end of the field.
“And then we are in that mode of chasing the game which is a little bit different to the La Rochelle game where we lose right at the death where we are in the lead for most of the game.”
There was no surprise, he admitted, Jake White would try to replicate what he had seen in the European Cup final.
“The Bulls did a lot of stuff that we talked about yesterday, they were very clinical when they got down our end.
“They came with a good plan and it is painful for our guys in there at the moment. It is hurting in the dressing room.
“As I have said previously to our young guys, it is a hard lesson, you need to learn sometimes.”
Leinster suffered from being behind on the clock, if there had been a bit more time, maybe just one more restart…
”The Bulls are a quality team, they came with a good plan, they were well coached and once they had a lead and played that pressure game, they didn't have to do huge amount but they just put the squeeze on us.
“And we just weren't really accurate enough when we were chasing the game.
“We plenty of opportunities, created plenty of opportunities but, you know, when you come to semi-finals against top end teams, you need all your players sort of in an eight, nine, 10/10 in terms of how they play the game.
“Unfortunately for us, some of us were just not 100 per cent.”
Leinster lost two line-outs in the corner either side of the end of James Ryan’s 53-63rd minute sin-bin, opportunities that could have saved the game.
Continued Cullen: “That's what it comes down to, it's execution in the big moments in the big game.
“Across the board, we just weren't quite there today. We talked about the potential for that.
“Complacency is probably the wrong word, but it takes a little bit of the edge off when you have a big win and you try to reset to go.
“You always have that in the back of your mind though, - there were certain things in that Glasgow game that came a little bit easy to us.”
Some referees allow play to develop at the breakdown more than others and Cullen wasn’t sure they understood Andrea Picardi’s interpretations as much as they would have liked.
“That's the great debate about how the game is refereed, and for us as coaches, how do we set up the team? Sometimes you get in trouble playing too much.
“It's great when you get into the flow like we had last week, but if you're not quite in the flow, and the other team are being aggressive it gets difficult.
“We get stripped a couple of times in contact, lose the ball on the ground. The Bulls hooker came up with three or four turnovers, and those penalties are huge in the big games.
“Having said that we did start the game well but we give away some pretty important turnovers which allows the Bulls build a lead.
“When it comes to these high stakes pressure games, particularly when the conditions deteriorate a little bit as well, it became harder to chase the game.
“Unfortunately, we weren't accurate enough over the course of 80 minutes.”
