Luke Fitzgerald

And couldn't get it done.

I just think that maybe that little bit of extra expectation might be something that might play to their strengths on the weekend.

And I do think they've got an extremely strong squad.

We're all looking forward to seeing the line-up that Leo Cullen decides to go with.

I still think he's got a really strong deck of cards to pick from.

And they're well capable of winning this one on the weekend, I think.

Yeah, and look, that's the key thing.

Things can go really wrong very, very quickly against this Bordeaux team.

Jalabert and Lukaku really pull the strings.

And, you know, they're, you know, excellent kicking games, kind of underpins a very exciting running game.

But if they find the turf behind you, you know, Bielbary, Uberti, Riasi, all these guys, even Penault in the centre, these guys have serious top-end pace and they can hurt you very, very quickly.

So, absolutely key that someone like Tommy O'Brien with his pace is back and obviously his physical kind of, I suppose, prowess on the defensive side of the ball.

I mean, he's been a real energiser bunny for this Leinster team and for the Irish team as a matter of fact as well.

So,

Absolutely key to have someone like him available and it'll be a big lift to the guys, I'm sure.

Yeah well to me there's kind of a blueprint to kind of fix that you know I thought Ireland really you know shored up their defence after that game I thought that you know you saw what they did in the air to England I think there was a refocus on the quality of the kick but also the quality of the chase which I think was quite poor over in Paris so I thought that was kind of the catalyst for what turned out to be actually a very strong Six Nations for the Irish team after a disappointing start over in Paris so

Look, I think the French guys will know what to expect on that front, but Leinster have been excellent in those two areas over the last couple of weeks.

I really think they've been watertight defensively for the most part, and they've got that kind of oppressive, hard-off-the-line defence that Nina Barr has been employing since he's arrived.

If they can get on top of this Bordeaux team in that facet of the game, which is something they didn't do in Paris either, they've got a real chance of forcing a few errors from this Bordeaux team.

I think they liked it.