Strauss inclusion is a massive boost

Donal Lenihan on the boxes Leinster must tick in Cardiff today

1. The set piece

LEINSTER’s analysis of the opposition will not have had to quarry too deep to assess where the main threat will come from in today’s Heineken Cup final. Northampton play a very unsophisticated game with their first point of attack coming from the set piece. Their scrum has wreaked havoc this season and is used as a tool of psychological advantage. Leinster must not allow them to generate any momentum from this phase. The Saints’ international front row represents a real league of nations with Tongan loose head Saone Tonga’uiha and South African tight head Brian Mujati flanking England hooker Dylan Hartley. As a unit they have been impregnable and were primarily responsible for dismantling the challenge of Ulster and Perpignan in the knockout phase.