It will be first-timers La Rochelle, not Leinster, going to Twickenham on May 22 for an all-French Heineken Champions Cup final against Toulouse and perhaps the pain is still in front of them but the key for Cullen in the wake of this humbling semi-final exit is to hammer into his players the importance of remembering just how much this loss hurt them to help Leinster claim their fifth European title.

Since overcoming Racing 92 in Bilbao in the 2018 final, Cullen has seen his teams outgunned physically and pressured into uncharacteristic errors three seasons in succession — by Saracens in both the 2019 final and 2020 quarter-final, and now by La Rochelle at the last-four stage.

Yesterday in the Atlantic port town, they were undone by familiar faces, not only the coaching nous of former forwards coach Jono Gibbes, La Rochelle’s director of rugby, and their head coach Ronan O’Gara, so often Leinster’s nemesis in red and now an architect of their demise from the sidelines, but also in the shape of giant lock Will Skelton.

The Auckland-born Australian had been a part of that Saracens team in Newcastle two years ago when Leinster’s defence had been bulldozed by the English champions and suffocated in attack at St James’ Park. Skelton was at it again yesterday as La Rochelle rebounded from a messy, ill-disciplined start that leaked both a converted Tadhg Furlong try and a man, flanker Wian Liebenberg, to the sin bin, added scoreboard pressure through the boot of Ihaia West, and then applied the squeeze and heft to power home during a one-sided second-half.

It was fitting that Skelton, all 6ft 7ins and 19st 9lbs of him, should apply the killer blow with his side’s second try on 75 minutes that put the game beyond their reach. His open-field carrying had been instrumental in turning the tide and his power had helped drive Gregory Alldritt over the line for La Rochelle’s opening try 10 minutes earlier to end an hour of nip and tuck. Leinster had in truth been hanging on since their opening salvo, their discipline and accuracy waning after such a bright start but Skelton’s try was the culmination of that powerful response.

“He’s caused us a bit of trouble when he was with Saracens as well in the final in Newcastle in particular,” Cullen said of Skelton. “He’s a huge man and can cause a lot of damage. I thought we contained those guys well in the first half but it was just off the back of some penalties and field position when they get a bit of a roll on and a couple of guys slipped off a few tackles, particularly on Will Skelton.

The game at this level can be quite simple, once you get on the front foot with momentum and I thought the half-backs controlled the game well for La Rochelle... So they just showed good street smarts.

Cullen acknowledged the parallels between this defeat and the losses to Saracens, the most recent of which was only last September in the delayed 2019-20 quarter-final, and pinpointed the common traits.

“That is the big thing, making sure you nail your opportunities in these games. The Saracens game, the quarter-final, we started so slowly; you think the Saracens final, there were big moments when we don’t quite nail some chances in that game, so yes, there are some parallels there.”

This isn’t Cullen’s first rodeo, he was put through the wringer with Leinster and also lost a final with Leicester Tigers before he eventually lifted the trophy after leading his province to glory in 2009. He recognises some of his players may be on similar journeys.

“The players change all the time, you have a different set of players, a different group, always evolving, and you have different players coming in and you have just got to go through some of that pain. Jeepers, from my own experience as a player we had so many painful memories leading into Leinster being successful for the first time in this tournament. You get to a semi-final, it’s such fine margins — particularly away from home, a couple of calls over the course of the game don’t quite go our way and suddenly the game can get away from you. But, that’s off the back of the big, powerful players that teams have.

“When you come away to France, that’s what teams have. They’re heavily resourced, the set-ups are impressive, they’re big operations with big physical men who can do damage. They’re recruiting, bringing in All Blacks, we know all these things. So, for us, we need to get all the little bits right on the day. There were plenty of things we did get right, but we didn’t get enough right.

“Particularly at the start of the game, that’s when we had the chance to take the game away from La Rochelle.

“Because then if they are chasing the game it has a very, very different complexion. It’s hard chasing the game against them because of the physical players you’re running into, the game becomes very difficult because they go very aggressive at the contact area.

Nailing some of those chances, particularly at the start, was so, so important.

“Unfortunately, we weren’t good enough to do that today and the guys inside are gutted because they know there’s more in them.

“That’s the big thing for us, making sure we nail all the moments in these big games.”