Devin Toner says Leinster are bubbling to the boil at just the right time as they prepare to host moneybags Montpellier in the RDS this Saturday.

Paul O’Connell has explained that there was no option but to call time on his Ireland career in order to afford himself the best possible opportunity of making his post-World Cup switch from Munster to Toulon a success.

While it had initially looked like Matt O’Connor would see out the final year of his contract with Leinster, yesterday’s news of his departure wasn’t all that surprising.

The Top 14’s financial watchdog this week released a report showing France’s top 30 clubs have an accumulated debt of almost €34 million — yet nobody here batted an eyelid, writes Ronan O’Gara.

European Champions Cup Pool 1

Jamie Cudmore kept his part of a bilateral non-aggression pact with his former Clermont sparring partner, Nathan Hines, drawn up before their war of attrition against Sale.

Munster-Leinster, with the greatest of respect to Ulster and Connacht, remains the blue chip of Irish interprovincials, but it didn’t appear that way yesterday on the training paddocks in Limerick and Dublin.

Few men epitomise their club as Steve Diamond does Sale Sharks.

Devin Toner accepts he will be one of those senior players expected to plug the leadership gap in Leinster’s pack created by Leo Cullen’s off-season move upstairs to coaches’ office.

Clermont Auvergne are not a side to meet from September to March, but their late season form and inability to close the deal means coach Vern Cotter will depart the club in the summer to mixed reviews, by Bernard Jackman.

Wales 51 Scotland 3

Jamie Heaslip has left the door open on a possible move abroad and his horizons, far from being limited to France, stretch as far as Japan and the southern hemisphere.

Booed like a B-movie villain at the Saturday morning picture show, and embraced by old foes at the end of the reel come Saturday evening, Paul O’Connell got through another indefatigable 80 minutes at rugby’s highest level to end what must have been a trying two weeks for the Munster icon.

Munster's Heineken Cup adventure has taken them to the south of France today for a semi-final shoot-out with Clermont Auvergne today.

Jamie Cudmore. The Clermont enforcer. The mountainous Canadian. Red-carded for throwing a box into Paul O’Connell.

Munster are a team who have often faced — and overcome — huge hurdles in the Heineken Cup. Tomorrow, in the south of France, they face another of those seemingly impossible challenges.

The journey from Clermont-Ferrand to Montpellier takes just over three hours on the A75. It is a fairly spectacular drive, across the Massif Central, down into valleys and rising sharply over the next mountains in a landscape shaped by volcanoes.

You’d think a man who lived in Ireland for a couple of years would be spending a lot of time with the Clermont Auvergne backroom staff ahead of Saturday’s Heineken Cup semi-final clash with Munster.

Paul O’Connell last night described Saturday’s Heineken Cup semi-final against raging hot favourites Clermont Auvergne as the biggest challenge he has faced in a Munster jersey.

Clermont Auvergne second row Jamie Cudmore says “for the good of the game, it’d be too bad” if his old adversary, Munster’s Paul O’Connell, had been banned for their upcoming Heineken Cup clash.

Brian O’Driscoll says “the head is good” but the Ireland centre will face a cognitive test today to determine if he can face Italy in Saturday’s final Six Nations clash.

Rob Kearney has revealed Jonathan Sexton was “upset” that a deal could not be done with the IRFU to keep him at Leinster next season and warned that the out-half’s move to France could pave a path that other Irish internationals will follow.

Jonathan Sexton has been annoyed with himself this week.

There’s been a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth since the Irish whitewash in Europe over the weekend but it is about time people start to realise that we have no divine right to be winning Heineken Cups with the regularity we’ve enjoyed in recent times.

Leinster 21 Clermont Auvergne 28

The IRFU last night confirmed Leinster coach Joe Schmidt’s assertion that the province followed all the correct protocols in its bid to secure the services of Connacht lock Mike McCarthy.

Mike Ross is confident his contract talks with the IRFU will result in a deal that keeps him at Leinster well beyond next summer when his current deal is due to expire.

Leinster 37 Zebre 7

The glow from Ireland’s defeat of Argentina at the Aviva Stadium swept across Dublin’s southside to UCD yesterday with the confirmation that Brian O’Driscoll and Rob Kearney should both be fit for the start of the Six Nations next February.

If reports from New Zealand this week are accurate, then 38-year-old Brad Thorn will be following up his three-month stint with Leinster earlier this year with a swansong of a season back on home soil with the Highlanders.

Today, at the RDS, it will be Tom Denton’s turn.

Gethin Jenkins accepts he may have to miss next summer’s British and Irish Lions tour of Australia if Toulon reach the French Top 14 final.

Warren Gatland will be prepared to omit France-based players from the 2013 British and Irish Lions squad if they cannot secure release from club duties to make the plane.

By Ian Cusack

Getting the upper hand here will give one team an edge at Twickenham.

Heady days for Leinster. Less than 24 hours after their Heineken Cup semi-final heroics in France the European champions announced that 18 players had inked new deals with the province.

Clermont Auvergne 15 Leinster 19

If Leinster dominate these key areas in France, they will deserve the plaudits