James Lowe carries Leinster over the line and into Champions Cup final

Hat-tricks can be savoured whether endorsed by official trinkets or otherwise. When James Lowe is in his dotage, he’ll fondly remember the day that he carried Leinster’s scoring burden on his broad shoulders in a semi-final at Croke Park, his exploits witnessed by 82,300, an Investec Champions Cup record attendance.

Lowe’s three tries represented the tip of the iceberg, the easily visible part, but lurking below was a great deal more substance to the body of his performance. There is a knack to being in the right place, an intuition borne of good habits and technique, but it must be accompanied by the capacity to make clear-eyed choices. After all, sport is outcome driven.

Tries are the primary commodity in which wings trade but Lowe’s value to Leinster and Ireland supersedes just that single consideration; not that his strike-rate is too shabby in blue, 57 tries in 78 matches is phenomenal by any yardstick.

Leinster scrumhalf Jamison Gibson-Park won the official man of the match, and in some respects he shares many of those top end qualities with Lowe; technically excellent, sharp, astute, and alive to possibility in whatever guise, attack or defence.

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Lowe is superb at insinuating his way into a game, adopting a roving commission rather than accepting an orthodox role closer to the touchline. Several times he popped up at first receiver and, without fail, broke the gainline to give his team positive targets.

The 31-year-old’s kicking is another significant boon, whether it’s his thumping left-footed clearances, or as he demonstrated in the early throes of the semi-final, a delicately judged chip and chase up the touchline.

In the first nine minutes of the match, Lowe was involved on five occasions and apart from one misplaced pass, he consistently added value, chasing kicks, and forcing errors, committing multiple tacklers or the mundane, clearing out at rucks.

On 10 minutes Gibson-Park’s “hang it in the national gallery picture-perfect pass” allowed Lowe to step between Alex Mitchell and George Hendy and score his first try.

While the focus was rightly on the pass, Lowe’s rugby intellect enabled him to run an angled cutback from the touchline that not only split the defenders but caused them to lose sight of the Leinster wing for a nanosecond. Gibson-Park must be telepathic given the ball flight.

The two almost combined shortly after as Lowe hunted the scrumhalf’s grubber kick on penalty advantage before a second try-scoring collaboration. Caelan Doris flicked up the ball when grounded on the line and Gibson-Park had the presence of mind to bat the ball one-handed to a grateful Lowe.

A thumping tackle on George Furbank, surviving a ferocious hit by Juarno Augustus, fielding an up and under and powering between two tacklers, the only glitch on Lowe’s first-half highlight reel was a knock-on. And still, he continued, memorably, when he provided the backfield cover to hoover up Fin Smith’s grubber kick through and find touch: the left wing stationed near the right touchline.

At that point, he’d scored two tries, beaten three defenders and was successful five times on the gainline according to the official match metrics. There was no diminution in Lowe’s energy after the interval as he chased a Ross Byrne’s steepling kick. At times there can be a lost cause element for wings in the kick chase, but it’s included in the small print of the position.

On 43 minutes Lowe signed off on a hat-trick that in truth belonged to others, Ryan Baird’s trademark gallop as its genesis, followed by two lovely offloads, the first from Jamie Osborne and the second by Dan Sheehan. They prevented the Saints defence from being able to realign, while Ciarán Frawley’s work-rate and prescience to loop around the hooker was also pivotal.

Lowe was able to amble over in the corner. Three tries for a combined running total of about 8m, although in his post-match interview, the wing settled on 10 in a typically self-deprecating appraisal of his contribution.

Holding his one-year-old son, Nico, he was asked whether it was a “Lowe-show” at Croker. He replied: “I think it is Jamison’s show to be fair. He’s playing some unbelievable footie and making it look a little bit easy. I reckon that I ran about 10m collectively for it [the hat-trick]. The boys put it on a plate for me and I was just the man that put the ball down.”

Thereafter the game took on a different hue. Lowe continued to busy himself on behalf of his team-mates, resolute until the high ball bar one that escaped his grasp. He chased with purpose and began to pop up with greater regularity as first receiver, where he more often than not made headway in heavy traffic.

On 63 minutes he stifled a threatening Northampton attack by shooting up and cutting off the wider channel. As the Saints chipped away at Leinster’s lead, Lowe took responsibility, as he took a more hands-on role with the boot, so to speak.

There’s no doubt that the home side was now in survival mode, Lowe twice hoofed the ball long. His last involvement was a clearout at the final breakdown of the match, working hard to protect Robbie Henshaw’s carry into a thicket of Northampton’s tall timber.

There was one final line, not the whitewash, that Lowe embraced when praising his team-mates. He said: “Big players step up in big moments.” Lowe could easily have been referring to his contribution.