British & Irish Lion Jonathan Davies admits he will be replaying his European final heartache in his head for some time to come.
Davies headed to Twickenham last weekend looking to mark his first season with Clermont Auvergne by claiming European silverware – but it wasn’t to be as French rivals Toulon triumphed 24-18.
Centre Davies is used to winning silverware, helping the 2013 British & Irish Lions secure a famous 2-1 series victory over Australia.
And after coming so close to another accolade, Davies admits the defeat was tough to take.
“Coming home at about 3am on Sunday morning I was in a bit of a daze,” Davies said in his Sky Sports column.
“It’d been a long day for obvious reasons – we’d packed up after the game and pretty much headed for Clermont straight away.
“It was always going to be the case, even if we’d won. But walking through the front door with the final all behind me was a bit surreal. You focus on something for so long that it's hard to move on from it once it's gone.
“People obviously realise how difficult it is to lose a game, they know we’re hurting when that final whistle blows, and they know we’re hurting when another team heads over to the podium to collect a trophy in front of us.
“But one thing that surprised me when I starting playing professionally was realising just how draining the whole process is, given that it’s something you’ve talked about for almost nine straight months.
“After talking about winning that cup for nine months we ended up just six points short at Twickenham, and it's impossible not to replay the whole thing in your head to try and figure out how you could have changed that result.”
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