Leinster troops ready for ‘round eight’

DON’T mention Heineken Cup semi-finals to Leinster coach Matt Williams, he’s been sending his players into cup finals all season.

Williams' side meet Perpignan at Lansdowne Road tomorrow having not lost a game in the competition so far this campaign.

Leinster went through the group phase with a 100% record after home and away wins over Bristol, Swansea and fancied French side Montferrand.

That was followed by a home quarter-final victory at Lansdowne Road over Biarritz a fortnight ago and was exactly the way Williams intended the competition to pan out.

"It may sound ridiculous but this whole campaign has been about knockout football," Williams said. "We don't call it the semi-final, we're calling it round eight.

"We said after losing to Toulouse last year that if you lose one round in the group stages you're out of it.

"That's what happened to us. We lost in Toulouse and didn't get a home draw in the quarters and lost to Leicester at Welford Road.

"So we've worked on the premise that we've got to win every game and this is round eight.

"This Perpignan side is capable of beating us and we're capable of beating them. It's up to who does it on the day."

Williams is confident his side's late wobble against Biarritz in the quarter-final will ultimately benefit them.

"Winning by 40 points against Biarritz wouldn't have done us a lot of good," he added.

"The fact that it was really close and we had to work really hard, and that a lot of our guys hadn't played 80 minutes of solid rugby for a long time, helped us enormously."

Williams says Leinster will need to be on the top of their game for the full 80 minutes if they are to beat their latest French opponents.

"Each team is different but you don't make the semi-finals of the European Cup having beaten another of the semi-finalists in Munster and Gloucester and given Toulouse a good touch-up in the French championship without being a very good outfit.

"They may not be a fashionable side but that doesn't mean they're not a very capable side.

"Perpignan are physically a very tough team with great ball-runners," he said.

"Their whole back row are great ball-runners. Their wingers and full-back are great runners as well, great counter-attackers and Manny Edmonds at outside half is an old mate of mine I coached at New South Wales for a number of years.

" He is a beautiful player with the ball in his hand; a glorious running out-half and his kicking game has improved enormously."

Williams may not have Edmonds to coach any more but in Christian Warner he says he has another great Australian talent at fly-half.

"Christian's a great little player, always has been. Brian O'Driscoll beat his man or broke the gain line 16 times against Biarritz.

"Now, you've got to the thank the 10 for putting the ball in his hand and I just don't think he gets anyway near the accolades he deserves.

"That doesn't worry me at all because he'll do me and that's why I got him here."

"And if I went somewhere else he'd be one of the first guys I'd choose not that I'm going anywhere else but the point is he's a class act."