Sport at the highest level is generally about the smallest of margins and so it proved for Leinster on Saturday.
The game was a pick’em with the bookies in advance, both sides being given an exact equal chance of winning, and it’s hard to argue against following the money with the game going to extra time.
There were the first half handling errors, the agonisingly close drop kick in the final minute and the chances foregone to take three points at key junctures.
But they have to be weighed against the two tries that Toulouse had disallowed for fractions of a centimetre feet in touch.
It was a game for the ages, just sadly not the result that Leinster and Irish Rugby were longing for.
For it to be the third defeat in a row at the final hurdle is especially hard to take.
Leinster are the third team to make it to a successive hat trick of finals. Toulon won all three between 2013 and 2015. Toulouse won two of their three in a row a decade before.
No club has made it to four in a row but that has to be the target for Leo Cullen and his team becuase that is the bar which they have set.
Tickets for the Final, the 30th, to be played in Cardiff are already on sale but maybe it is too soon for the fans making their way back from an expensive and painful trip to London.
There are closer games to be played and moments to be enjoyed.
Leinster’s temporary farewell to the RDS takes place this Friday with Connacht the visitors. The sides lie 3rd and 10th in the table going into the game with home advantage or indeed qualification for the Quarter finals on the line.
Then there is the prospect of Knock-out cup rugby for the following three weekends, perhaps including clashes with other Irish provinces.
That’s the beauty of sport that defeats are not given time to linger. There is always a shot at redemption just around the corner.
That’s what leinster will have to cling to when they return to training this week.
And if it is some consolation, Bayer Leverkusen won the German FA Cup on Saturday, only three days after losing theor own European Cup chance at the Aviva Stadium on Wednesday.
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