The hazards of a poor league campaign have been available to see this week. Smaller teams move from the shadows and assume larger proportions. There's a feel Leinster are still on unsteady ground and the level of certainty that normally crystallizes the team has waned.
Only older members of the squad have experienced a season's end with no trophy climax nor the threat of falling outside of the European bosom. Although he doesn't care to do so, Eoin Reddan is one player who does remember.
“I think it’s happened me once, so it’s the second time since 2005,” he says of not competing for a trophy at the end of the season.
A decade on and there is a hint of falling short this season but Reddan is far from hopeless and draws a difference between the disappointment of losing finals and having to live with the consequences next season if they were to flop in their last two matches. Long term suffrage is a harder pill to swallow.
“I was just thinking about it the other day,” he says. “It’s odd when you step back and look at it but when you’re in it, this game is very important, in some ways it’s more important.
“Some games you’re playing in are important because of the game itself. Some games you live with the consequences - actually live them. You win or lose a final and that’s it, it’s done and dusted. You live with your own haunted memories of it if you lose.
“But you lose a game like this week and the week after and you actually live the consequences of it.”
Leinster are already living with the consequences. Their problem now is that anything other than a win against Treviso would add humiliation. The Italians have lost to every team but Zebre away from home. At home they lost to Munster, Ulster and Connacht but drew 24-24 with Leinster.
Matt O’Connor’s side cannot play a frantic game but must knock out their own tempo. There probably will be a different charge to the match because it has narrowed to a two game season and with Treviso also in the hunt for a European place, there will be a win or bust strategy from them. The visitors could not have found themselves in a better position arriving to Dublin.
“Look, they’re all very good runners and defenders,” says Reddan. “They’re very aggressive, made it tough for Munster last week so we’re under no illusions and right throughout the week we’ll be looking at them, seeing what sort of a person you are in terms of how you can apply yourself to this game and making sure we’re on the money.
“There’s no room for error. The risks are too big. It just comes down to two games and all of a sudden it’s laid bare for everyone now, this is what needs to be done and it’s kind of brought a different dynamic.
“The other two teams, Lllanelli and Edinburgh, are playing teams this week that don’t really have anything to play for, which changes things a little bit. I think it’s laid bare now for everybody.”
Holding nerve as much as anything will be a priority and with that clarity of purpose. Reddan watched the European final between Clermont and Toulon and saw how the losing side, Clermont, kicked the ball away after 25 minutes. He was making the point about how teams successfully or unsuccessfully try to do the same thing, control.
“Clermont, when they tried to shut up shop after 25 minutes, they kicked the ball...Toulon when they closed the game down, they’re still as aggressive and physical in everything they do,” he says.
“So they’re very clear about what they’re doing. It’s not a case of, ‘let’s not play here.’ It’s a different mentality. That mentality can seep through the team and then you lose physical battles and the game quickly changes.”
Then it’s off to Edinburgh for the final match. If there is one thing that Leinster does know, it’s that even now it is still not simple.
