ULTIMATE TEST
Leinster boss Cullen wary of French giants
TWO European heavyweights will collide in Aviva Stadium this afternoon as Leinster look to topple Toulouse in a mouthwatering Heineken Champions Cup semi-final.
And Leinster head coach Leo Cullen has hailed the French giants as the ultimate test for his squad, with a place in the Marseille finale on May 28 up for grabs.
The teams share nine European titles between them, as the defending champions arrive in Dublin armed with an array of French stars, including Antoine Dupont, Romain Ntamack, Cyril Baille and Julien Marchand.
Leinster, meanwhile, have named a starting line-up featuring 13 Ireland internationals with a further five on the bench. It promises to be a box-office clash in the capital and Cullen is braced for an enormous challenge from the visitors.
‘They have the ability just to turn it on at this stage of the season,’ the Leinster boss warned yesterday. ‘There’s two different styles – they have
the pressure game where they tighten things up and keep the game very tight, then they’ve the ability to open up at moments in the game as well with some of the players they have. ‘You’ve seen some of their individuals, the big seasons they’ve had, not just with Toulouse but with France. ‘And they’ve a huge amount of experience in the team now that has produced on the big days, during the course of the
Six Nations and you saw it during the November internationals as well. ’It’s a great challenge for our guys. They are the five-time champions, current champions, they’re the Top 14 champions and they have a Grand Slam-winning group of players as well. ‘But that’s what our guys wanted – they want to be up against this type of team at this stage of the tournament.’ Toulouse have multiple threats across the board but their scrum-half and talisman Dupont poses a very real danger to Leinster’s title ambitions. The 25-year-old is the World Player of the Year and led his country to a first Six Nations Grand Slam since 2010. ‘It is dangerous to focus on just one player, and they have a multitude of threats,’ Cullen added. ‘But, yeah, if you switch off for more than one second, he’s very dangerous in terms of his own running game, his ability to break. But it’s also if you get too sucked in by him, they have the ability to make breaks out wider, and his support lines on the inside are very, very dangerous. ‘So it’s making sure we have guys that are constantly tracking back on the inside because he is so dangerous in terms of being on someone’s shoulder, the ball is back on the inside all the time. ‘Even just the penalty shoot-out threat, there’s not so much we can do about that, but it just shows you in terms of his composure. ‘He’s been the form player in Europe for the past three or four seasons. We first saw him playing with Castres as a 17-year-old.’ This afternoon’s clash will be a repeat of the 2019 semi-final meeting in Ireland HQ. Cullen’s men stormed to a 30-12 victory that day, but Toulouse boss Ugo Mola feels his squad are now a different proposition. ‘We learned a lot of things back then,’ he said. ‘Three years later, we are vastly different and so are they. Leinster are the benchmark in terms of organisation and structure.’