Kaino proud of defeated Toulouse

Defending champions Toulouse went down 40-17 at the Aviva Stadium, despite taking a 7-3 lead early on, thanks to Antione Dupont’s try, converted by Thomas Ramos.

However, Leinster roared into a 23-10 half-time lead and never looked back to set up a final against Toulouse’ fellow TOP 14 side Stade Rochelais.

Although they came up short in their title defence, Kaino insisted their campaign had not been a failure.

“Definitely not,” he told BT Sport. “If you look at the quality of the teams that were in our competition, that were in our pool, and still to be able to make it to the semi-final, for us, we can still hold our heads high.

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“Today we have come up short against a ruthless and definitely a championship team.

“When we do reflect, I think there will be more than one area that we could definitely improve, but I think we have to congratulate Leinster who didn’t allow us to play the way we wanted.”

Toulouse must now focus on reaching the TOP 14 play-offs as they seek to retain their league title, but Kaino said they will first need to learn lessons from their defeat to Leinster.

He said: “The boys are disappointed with the result, but in terms of the context of the match and how ruthless Leinster were, I guess we just need to reflect and digest how we could have been a bit better. In full, it just wasn’t close.

“If Leinster play like that with any team, I think they will be hard to beat. That pace, that intensity, organisation. That’s definitely an international level type of game.”