Ruaidhri O'Connor

Ian Madigan with us as well, who'll be on commentary for Leinster on Saturday, punditry Friday night, so all set as well.

Ian, great to have you with us, man.

Well, they're calling it the Ian Madigan derby, Leinster against Bordeaux on Saturday, 2.45.

I will talk to you about your time in Bordeaux because, I mean, they're an interesting case study given when Leinster were winning their first European Cup in 2009, Bordeaux were fresh from, you know, the club folding and a new name and have really turned themselves into something over the last 15 years.

Yeah.

You're going to be there.

I am.

So for Leinster, this is going to be a beautiful weight lifted after a stodgy stop start season or a fifth consecutive final and all the acrimony and all the post defeat debate about management and everything else that will go with it.

And what do you make of the dynamic of this final?

You know, we noted even before the semifinal that it just didn't feel fever pitch.

There isn't much excitement about this version of Leinster versus, you know, Bordeaux.

who sold out their semi-final 42,000 in two hours, and they are so in on this team.

And now Leinster go into this final as firm underdogs, you know, a team of Grand Slam winners in recent times, the backbone of the Lions, and yet they're like almost the plucky underdogs here.

Something I'd be curious for both your thoughts on is, well, it feels like we'll only have an answer to this in retrospect.

You know, when you sit here on Monday and go through a win or a loss for Leinster, it will either be almost a kind of stop-start, affected by the Lions, stodgy kind of a season without vintage champagne rugby where they just...

time their run beautifully and unleash their best performance.

Everything they've been targeting circled, you know, they stay circled in the calendar.

The reason they brought in Jack Nienabar and they unleashed it at the perfect moment versus they haven't been right all season.

We've never felt they're right all season.

And Bordeaux came along and just exposed that.