Leinster are through to a third consecutive Champions Cup final and will face Toulouse in London later this month.
The Irish side sealed their progression to the decider in thrilling fashion at a sold-out Croke Park on Saturday evening, holding firm in the face of a Northampton fightback to claim a nervy three-point victory.
Saturday's occasion was a historic one, with the unavailability of the Aviva Stadium necessitating the move to Croker for Leinster - the first club game to be played at the stadium in 15 years.
A new Champions Cup record crowd of 82,300 was in attendance on an occasion widely accepted to have been a wonderful success for club rugby, with even the Northampton players and coaches understanding the weight of their visit to GAA HQ.
Leinster's hosting of the game in their home city has not gone down well with the English media, who appear to have launched a strange tirade against them and Toulouse for a perceived slight against their English opposition.
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English media take strange stance on Leinster's Champions Cup semi-final at Croke Park
4 May 2024; A general view of the big screen as it displays the attendance of 82,300 during the Investec Champions Cup semi-final match between Leinster and Northampton Saints at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
The format of the Champions Cup ranks the 16 teams progressing from the group stage, with the top two seeds guaranteed a sort of "home" advantage should they reach the semi-finals. The inverted commas are due to the language used in their rule book with the highest-ranked semi-final teams having "home country advantage" as opposed to "home venue advantage" in the early knockout stages.
The precise wording of the rule book effectively prevents teams from playing their last-four game in their regular home venue. Leinster have somewhat pushed the boundaries of this rule in previous seasons, playing semi-final games in the Aviva Stadium despite playing several regular season games at the venue.
In the aftermath of this year's thrilling semi-final, several English press outlets have used strange language to subtly chastise Leinster and Toulouse for hosting their semi-final encounters in their home cities over the weekend.
Reporting on the rumours that EPCR may seek to have a "semi-final weekend" at a neutral venue in future years, the Daily Mail said: "Northampton and Harlequins were beaten by Leinster and Toulouse in last weekend's semi-finals. Those two matches took place at Dublin's Croke Park and Stadium de Toulouse respectively. That has attracted criticism in some quarters as the two teams who will contest May 25's final at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium both played their last-four matches in their home cities."
The inference that there has been "criticism" is a strange and almost self-referential one - most if not all of the criticism of Leinster's trip to Croke Park has come from the English press.
To prove that point, one needs only look at a similar report in the Times which reads: "[The neutral semi-final weekend] would help to rebalance the tournament, which is stacked heavily in favour of top pool seeds - especially this year's finalists Leinster and Toulouse, who both played their "home country" semi-finals in their own cities against English opponents."
Nowhere in the rule book does "home country" advantage prevent teams from playing in alternate venues in their regular home city - something which Leinster and Toulouse successfully exploited this weekend.
4 May 2024; Leinster players after their side's victory in the Investec Champions Cup semi-final match between Leinster and Northampton Saints at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
The Guardian were also critical, with their report appearing to subtly suggest some malice from Toulouse and Leinster in their venue choice this past weekend.
This weekend's semi-finals were due to be played at neutral venues but with the higher-ranked team having home advantage. In reality, Leinster stayed in Dublin but took their match against Northampton to Croke Park while Toulouse also stayed at home but moved their clash with Harlequins to the nearby football stadium.
This valiant defence of honour does, of course, imply that Harlequins would not have dared to even consider moving the semi-final across the road from the Stoop to Twickenham should they have earned home advantage against Toulouse.
In predictable fashion, the first English journalist to begin this tirade was, of course, Stephen Jones back in April.
Writing in the Sunday Times, Jones argued that EPCR's current regulations were "ludicrously" imbalanced towards Leinster: "They have the home country advantage as the competition's second-ranked team but will now have to walk all the way to Croke Park, also in Dublin, of course. The organisers of this tournament have made it partially ridiculous by allowing the seedings from months ago to apply all the way through until the final, which has devalued the event and given Leinster a ludicrously priceless advantage."
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Except this is the way the Champions Cup has always been run, and Leinster and Toulouse have merely displayed how best to utilise the top seeding that both sides earned with their pool stage performances.
The two sides will meet in a mouthwatering final at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on May 25, with kick-off at 2:45pm.
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