Jack Conan yet to revisit Northampton semi-final loss with Lions team-mates

RTÉ News​

21-06-2025

With 12 Leinster players and four Northampton Saints in this Lions squad, it would be interesting to know when, or if, their Champions Cup semi-final comes up in conversation behind the four walls.
Tommy Freeman, Henry Pollock, Fin Smith and Alex Mitchell all returned to Aviva Stadium last night for the first time since their 38-35 win against Leinster in early May, although this time they were on the losing side, as Los Pumas pulled off a 28-24 win against the Lions.
Only a couple of those Leinster players were involved last night, with Rónan Kelleher and Tadhg Furlong appearing off the bench, with the rest held back either to rehab injuries or to stay fresh from their URC final exploits last week.
Many of them were in UCD on Friday morning as some of the Lions squad held a skills session with a group of 90 school kids, with Jack Conan, Josh van der Flier, Joe McCarthy, Andrew Porter and James Lowe the Leinster players involved.
Having missed the training camp in Portugal last week, the Leinster crew joined up with the squad on Monday, along with the Bath and Leicester Tigers players involved in last week's Premiership final.
And Conan says the Leinster and Northampton players are yet to revisit that game between them, although he's not ruling it out.
"No, no... It's long in the memory at this stage," he said.
"I'm sure they were happy enough to get the win over us but nothing has been said. Maybe after a few pints it might come up, but at the moment it's all pleasantries and all that."
The number 8 - who captained the province down the final stretch of the season, following an injury to Caelan Doris – admitted the defeat knocked the wind out of Leinster for a couple of weeks, before they fronted up to impressively beat Glasgow Warriors and the Bulls to win the URC final, their first trophy since March 2021.
"It was a bit weird in the changing room after, like we didn't know how to win. Lads were a bit awkward or something like that, but it was good craic.
"The afterglow went pretty quickly on Monday morning when you had to pack up for the next eight weeks of your life, and get organised and do everything else and get into camp. The anxiety was pretty high, like first day of school going in."
While they ended the season with silverware, the nature of their Champions Cup semi-final defeat to Northampton has sparked debate around whether the season was a success or a failure.
When the range of opinions varies so much, often the answer is somewhere in the middle.
"I think any season where you win something can never be deemed a failure," Conan added. "Obviously we want to go well in both competitions, and I think if it hadn't been for the performance against Northampton, even if we had lost that game, but we performed really well, I don't think people would have said much about it.
"They [Northampton] are a quality side, but I think it was just the way we didn't show up that day, and had a bit of a hangover for a few weeks.
"Maybe we don't get the result over the last two weeks, if it wasn't for that game. Maybe it was the bit of a kick that we needed.
"The problem is when you win most of the time, it papers over cracks a little bit, so we had to have a good hard look at ourselves and it was tough for a lot of lads, for everyone in the building. You get to win a trophy at Croke Park with all your mates, at the end of the day, I would have taken then.
"I definitely wouldn't say it was a failure, but there's definitely some more in this club and more in the lads, so hopefully there'll be a few years still ahead of us."
Conan played all three Tests on the 2021 tour of South Africa, although that tour was a world away from what he's expecting to see in Australia, with Covid-19 still a major part of everyday life four years ago.
And as the squad prepare to depart for Perth this morning, the 32-year-old is eager to soak it all up.
"I can't wait to get over there, everyone says it's just a different fanfare, a different level of excitement when you get properly on tour.
"But you can even see it walking around town at the moment, people in jerseys, there's a pop-up shop, so many kids outside the Shelbourne. It's special and I'm looking forward to getting a proper run-out at some stage.
"Four years ago was still great, I loved it and had a great experience.
"In a way, you get to know the lads in such a different way because it was eight weeks of kind of solitary confinement. You have to mix.
"You still have to mix now but you're getting out and about in smaller groups whereas four years ago, everyone was just kind of sitting around."