Could URC success salvage season for Leinster?

While most eyes in the rugby watching world were trained on the Principality Stadium for the Champions Cup final last weekend, viewing figures around Dublin were likely below the average.

Leinster, Ireland and soon-to-be Lions wing James Lowe took his young family to the zoo, and you imagine he was not alone among his team-mates in finding something else to occupy the hours that led to Bordeaux-Begles being crowned European champions.

The first time since 2021 that Leinster have not been involved in the decider, defeat by beaten finalists Northampton Saints in the semi-finals ensured their wait to add an elusive fifth star to their crest goes on.

It has now been seven years since they won their fourth title, against Racing 92 in Bilbao.

As Leo Cullen's team regather for the United Rugby Championship (URC) play-offs and Saturday's quarter-final at home to Scarlets, it has left them in something of an awkward limbo.

While in the weeks since the side have recorded their biggest ever domestic victory and secured top seeding for the URC knockouts, neither achievement was ever going to flush the bitter taste of a seventh straight European exit.

It is clear that a side must do an awful lot right to get to where Leinster have been in recent seasons.

There are, after all, only a few teams in the world for whom seven years without a Champions Cup would be considered a drought.

In those years since they have lost a quarter-final and final to Saracens, a quarter-final and two finals to La Rochelle, a final to Toulouse and this year's semi-final against the Saints.

Having won plenty of significant games across the period, there was a logic in what lock James Ryan said last year about the "the risk of failing greatly" when trying to achieve greatness.

But, like the Buffalo Bills and their losses in four straight Super Bowls between 1991 and 1994, this particular squad are in danger of being remembered for missing out at the sharp end rather than all the good they have done to reach such games.

There is little doubt that the longer it goes, the more difficult it becomes, with Josh van der Flier saying this month he believes the side "care too much" about winning the Champions Cup, something his team-mate Robbie Henshaw has previously called an "obsession".

When one competition becomes your season's lodestar, all else on offer will feel diminished.

Prop Andrew Porter made as much clear in a 2023 interview that pops up again and again on social media after Leinster's European defeats.

"You don't see many URC or Pro14s or whatever you have on the jersey. You see those stars that are on the jersey," he said in 2023 before the second of those finals against La Rochelle.

Yet, there is a sense that this year the domestic bread and butter has taken on a greater significance this year.

After a run of four straight titles between 2018 and 2021, Leinster have not won any of the last three, a time period that encompasses the inclusion of South African sides Bulls, Sharks, Stormers and Lions in the competition.

Forwards coach Robin McBryde said it would represent "a step in the right direction" and it will not have gone unnoticed that this particular piece of silverware has also proved to be elusive of late.

While plenty of their squad have enjoyed successes with Ireland, after three seasons, there would be value simply in the act of winning silverware again.

"For Ireland we have been able to do that in recent years, but we haven't been able to transfer that with Leinster," said Lowe.

"It doesn't mean that because you have won with Ireland you are going to win with Leinster.

"You still have to come back here and perform on the biggest of days and under the most amount of pressure. That's what we want to do."

There will be an emotional element too, with Lowe noting that long-serving team-mates such as Cian Healy and Ross Byrne are in their final days in Leinster blue.

"Some of the best days of your life are when you win silverware together," he said.

"We can't let Cian Healy leave Leinster without another medal around his neck. It's not doing him justice, it's not doing Ross Byrne justice."

Winning their domestic trophy may well be viewed as a consolation prize but, as the URC play-offs begin, Leinster will be well aware that it certainly beats the alternative.