Knoop misses out again for Leinster
Knoop was named in a 26-man squad earlier in the week but has been unable to recover from injury. His place in the team against Toulouse is taken for the second week in succession by Stan Wright, with Juan Gomez named on the bench.
As predicted, Shane Horgan will become Leinster’s joint top cap holder when he makes his 61st appearance after being named on the right wing in an unchanged team for the encounter in the south of France.
With Knoop again ruled out, there are no changes to the panel from the squad that participated in last week’s win over the Leicester Tigers.
That means Rob Kearney will make his 50th appearance for the province on the left wing after making his senior debut in September 2005.
The in-form Girvan Dempsey continues at full back with skipper Brian O’Driscoll again partnering Gordon D’Arcy at centre.
Winger Kearney could be joined by hooker Brian Blaney in reaching the half-century milestone should the forward come off the bench.
Leinster are expected to be boosted by a sizeable travelling support, with well over 1,000 expected in the sell-out crowd, and they will need to be vociferous as never before, with Toulouse hell-bent on making it a fourth victory from six fixtures against Leinster.
The French side will be captained by Yannick Jauzion with only one of the team, fly half Valentin Courrent, is uncapped at international level.
The team is comprised mostly of French internationals, but they also boast a couple of South Africans, a Fijian and an Argentinean — enough to make Leinster worry for their safety.
Guy Noves, the Toulouse coach, is viewing this as a must-win game.
“I think Leinster, with so many good players and a very fine win against Leicester, will come here in determined form.
“They have beaten us in Toulouse before and, with so many very good players, they will be very difficult to beat. We will have to play very well to get the result we need.
“Last year was disappointing for us in the Heineken Cup. We always set out to achieve at least a place in the knock-out stages, but we did not manage that. It was unusual and not acceptable. We have to do much better this season; therefore we need to keep on winning and we need to improve from last week. We did not play well against Edinburgh.”
His Leinster counterpart Michael Cheika was equally honest. Despite Leinster’s win over the Tigers, he said: “This is a huge game for us. It’s going to be totally different from the Leicester clash last week.
“Leicester tried to attack us mainly down one channel and we probably surprised them with the intensity of our tackling. Our defence was good, but it has to be better this week, because Toulouse will attack us from a number of different areas.
“They have the strength to provide us with a battle up front, and the skill and speed out wide to stretch us. It’s likely to be an overtime job for our boys in defence, but I feel happy that they can get it right again.
“By showing the same determination and making the required number of tackles, we can frustrate Toulouse; the difficulty could be in stopping them from offloading possession quickly as they do so well.”
Two years ago, Leinster came away with a quarter-final victory after a remarkable game. Cheika hopes that will happen again, but Leinster would be wise to remember that Toulouse are back in the Stade Ernest Wallon, and few visiting teams escape from there with anything to show for their efforts.
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