Ruaidhri O'Connor

it's as much about that as it is the result because if they perform to their best it could be like one of their traditional semi-finals where they kind of hit a certain level and just power past Toulon team who are limited but if they get into a dogfight Toulon will love that and Toulon against Glasgow really impressed me with the patience of their pick and go game their tactics they went up against the Glasgow team and just wouldn't let them play any rugby and they just battered them in the second half and they have a physical profile of team that Leinster traditionally have struggled against now

Maybe aerobically they might struggle a little bit if Leinster can play a really fast game, but if it's a little bit slippy and if they can scrum and maul and win the kick battle and pin Leinster into the 22 and just go through the phases, they could fatigue that starting 15 and then what's coming off the bench is just not as strong.

Leinster should win, but there's definitely a way that Toulon can unseat them.

Yeah, yeah.

There's been a few times he's stepped in for Caelan Dorris as captain and he's...

He's not afraid to give bits of insight from behind the scenes and to set the players' agenda out there for them and kind of speak to what the players want and what the players are seeing.

And I do think since that semi-final last year when, I mean, there was all sorts of tumult going on behind the scenes after that where it was Blad's, you know, between team selection, between Nina Arbor's comments in the aftermath, there was a reset needed this year.

It's hard for the Leinster senior players to really have a massive influence at Leinster because they're not there most of the time.

And that is definitely a challenge.

He came out after the Connacht game in December, January time saying that we wanted to play the Leinster way.

We went to the coaches and said we want to play more rugby.

And Nienaber says he doesn't remember that conversation, but they have, I think, changed it up and moved towards a more traditional Leinster style while marrying it with the defensive stuff.

But I'm not sure how much that suits Jack Nienaber.

Yes.

Well, look, Jack Nienabar has a bit of a history of kind of, you know, like the stuff he said after the semifinal last year doesn't hold water where he said, I'm not a psychologist.

I don't.

uh you know i don't i'm not they're here to inspire the players i'm just here to teach them how to tackle and also kind of distancing himself from the defensive performance against northampton i presume behind the scenes he's taking a very different tact this is just his what how he wished he's choosing to to play it publicly but still it's you know you're projecting an image or you're projecting this is how you're speaking to your fans

It is.

And like, I really admire Sheehan.

Sheehan's got a really, he's charismatic.