LEINSTER
EURO SEASON SO FAR: Massively strong quarter-final performance to see off reigning champions Saracens 30-19 at a packed Aviva. Leinster were comfortably best in class at the pool stage with a perfect record of six wins in six matches in Pool 3, although only the Glasgow games were relatively straight forward. Montpellier were tough and muscular while patience was the key word against Exeter at Sandy Park in difficult conditions. The return game, a 17-12 win, was the nearest Leinster came to a slip up with the winning try arguably coming off a forward pass. SEMI-FINAL HISTORY: Hardened campaigners who have learnt a multitude of lessons in their nine semifinals. Lost three in a row to start with against Cardiff, Perpignan and Munster – the latter a 30-6 humiliation at Lansdowne Road – before hitting back with a 25-6 win in front of 82,000 at Croke Park in 2009, the first year they won the Cup. Lost to Toulouse in Toulouse – don’t ask me how the ‘neutral venue’ thing works – the following year but then beat the French giants back at the Aviva in 2011. Their last three semifinals have all been in France. In 2012 Leinster defeated Clermont 19-15 in Bordeaux, in 2015 they lost 25-10 to Toulon in Marseilles, and last year they lost 27-22 to Clermont in Lyon. STARMEN: Leinster have go-to men everywhere, many of them with huge experience in Europe such as Johnny Sexton, Rob Kearney and Isa Nacewa. Up front there are few to match the strong scrummaging mobile front row but their talisman this year as actually been flanker Dan Leavy, a force of nature in the back row who has made good the absence of Sean O’Brien. COACH’S CORNER: The Leo Cullen/Stuart Lancaster combo has worked very nicely right from the off. Cullen is a Euro warrior from past years with both Leicester and Leinster and doesn’t miss a trick; Lancaster has added a lot off organisation and structure, especially in defence.