Bielle-Biarrey doubles up as Bordeaux sink Leinster to retain Champions Cup

Another vintage year for Bordeaux, another bitter final loss for Leinster. On a hot, unforgiving afternoon in Bilbao there was never the slightest doubt who would be hoisting the trophy into a cloudless Basque sky, such was the clear superiority of the defending champions. Only Leinster themselves have ever racked up more points in a Champions Cup final and the scoreboard did not lie.

In some ways Leinster should be absolved from any particular shame. There is now no club side in the world with a sharper attacking edge than Bordeaux nor a deadlier individual finisher than Louis Bielle-Biarrey. The French wing added another brace of tries to his tally, which now stands at 34 in 30 games this season. Factor in the artistic direction of Maxime Lucu and Matthieu Jalibert and their back-to-back titles are not remotely a coincidence.

So much, either way, for Leinster’s pursuit of a fifth gold star on their jerseys. The four-time winners were a distant 35-7 down at the interval before rallying slightly in the third quarter after Lucu was sin-binned for yanking back Joe McCarthy by his collar. As with Ulster the previous evening against Montpellier, the gap in game-breaking class was otherwise conspicuous. French rugby has its foibles but the national team and the best Top 14 sides are now in a shared sweet spot.

Maxime Lucu scores the first of Bordeaux’s five tries.
Photograph: Miguel Oses/AP

Factor in the cacophony of noise and the punishing conditions and it all felt a million miles away from suburban Dublin. There is also no doubt this tournament grows ever harder for non-French sides to win. This is the sixth straight year that the Champions Cup has ended up in Gallic hands, with France having also claimed this year’s Six Nations title. They have won so much this year it is a wonder that France didn’t win the Eurovision song contest as well.

With thousands having travelled across the border to northern Spain this certainly felt like a Bordeaux home match at times, particularly when Hugo Keenan spilt the first box kick of the game from Lucu. Which made it all the more creditable when Leinster struck first, a brutal sequence of phases in the opposing 22 creating the platform for Tommy O’Brien to score in the right corner.

Unlike the damp day in this same stadium when they last won this title in 2018, though, there was always a sense that, given the chance, Bordeaux would leave some spectacular vapour trails. And after a controversial decision to disallow what appeared to 99% of people in the stadium to be a spectacular try in the right corner for a flying Cameron Woki, that is exactly what happened.

Bordeaux’s Louis Bielle-Biarrey races clear to score a try against Leinster. Photograph: Miguel Oses/AP

Never mind they were facing the team with the meanest defence in the tournament; if anything it seemed to sharpen their appetite from the moment Lucu sniped over for their first try from a close-range ruck. Some deft midfield offloading then opened up plenty of space for wing Pablo Uberti before they went up another level with the game not yet 25 minutes old.

Watching Jalibert and Lucu probe, tease and find the cutest of angles is among the biggest privileges of the modern game and, hard though they tried, Leinster could barely lay a glove on either of them. And when the ball subsequently fell to Bielle-Biarrey with two cover defenders theoretically in his way, the wing did what he does better than anyone, stepping inside and then straightening at the last minute to reach the try line.

Pablo Uberti carries Leinster’s Josh van der Flier on his way to Bordeaux’s second try. Photograph: Miguel Oses/AP

Leinster, without having down too much wrong, were 21-7 down and things were about to get worse. Unlike on the damp day in this same stadium in 2018 when they last won this title, the heat was not helping their cause and in the last six minutes of the first half they suffered two more heavy blows to morale.

This time it was not so much French genius as a double dose of misfortune. First Damian Penaud got a boot to a deflected loose ball and it bounced up perfectly for Bielle-Biarrey who sped away for his second. Even when Leinster managed to string together a half-promising attack it also ended in disaster, Yoram Moefana intercepting Harry Byrne’s pass near halfway before cruising away in the distance for his side’s fifth try.

The second half, perhaps unsurprisingly, was more subdued. Leinster did score further tries through a diving McCarthy and the persevering Garry Ringrose while Rieko Ioane had the occasional bright moment but two penalties from Lucu, already a hero of the Basque Country, settled any fluttering nerves. Jalibert was withdrawn with the game already won and the rest was a noisy procession.

The backdrop was special, too. The San Mamés is a cool stadium stylistically and lies only a few tram stops away from the stunning Guggenheim Museum where modern architecture and contemporary art spectacularly combine. As far as Bordeaux are concerned, though, there would be nothing more stunning than a third successive Champions Cup title. At this precise moment few would bet against them.