'COME back when you’ve won 18’, read a Liverpool banner aimed at Man United fans bleating about the number of English titles won in the 90s; needless to say, when United did match the feat last season, whoever unfurled that one was nowhere to be seen, superiority complex presumably in tatters.

Munster rugby fans can probably relate; since May, they’ve had their Leinster brethren in their ears about the blues’ maiden Heineken Cup win.

Here, the more childish red has had two defences: ‘Come back when you’ve won two’, and ‘You’d never have done it without Rocky Elsom’.

But one man has never won a Heineken Cup on his own, and the physicality of Scottish hard man Nathan Hines, who arrives from Perpignan, should offset some of the qualities lost to Leinster when Elsom opted to return to Australia.

Hines is one of a number of shrewd signings by Michael Cheika, who will be hoping his side can not only match Munster’s feat of two Heinekens, but eclipse their southern cousins by doing it back-to-back.

Like prop Mike Ross, who arrives from Harlequins, new Leinster scrum-half Eoin Reddan made his name across the water having found opportunities limited at his native Munster.

However, there remains a suspicion that like Brian O’Meara and Chris Whitaker before him, the former Wasps man takes too many steps for his delivery to be as swift as those outside would like.

Ross, meanwhile, will relish the challenge of having to unseat CJ van der Linde and Stan Wright from the tighthead position; it wasn’t an accident that he was named on the Guinness Premiership team of the season last term.

On the downside, little is known about South African hooker Richardt Strauss, while Aussie fly-half Shaun Berne is hardly a like-for-like replacement for  Felipe Contepomi; perhaps the Leinster management believe Jonathan Sexton is ready to handle the pressure of being first choice.

Nonetheless, this is the one cupboard that looks a little bare for Leinster, whose followers won’t have forgotten the Eddie Hekenui years, when whoever donned the number ten jersey seemed to turn into a gibbering mess.

Overall though, no-one can accuse Leinster of standing still. With the likes of Rob Kearney and Jamie Heaslip returning from the Lions tour with world reputations embellished, things are once again looking up in the east.