Easterby: No-one is pretending that we are playing well

Leinster may have lost just once in their last eight outings, but the quality of their performances continue to drive the conversation as the province turns away from Europe and into a hat-trick of domestic interpros in the Guinness PRO12.

Connacht come to town next Friday and rarely, if ever, will they have run out at the RDS in such fine fettle, having defeated Bayonne on the road at the weekend in the Challenge Cup and with what was virtually a second string.

Leinster, by contrast, squeaked past Harlequins in the Champions Cup, but they only exacerbated the impression that they are a side in danger of foundering and all the more so with confirmation that Rhys Ruddock fractured an arm and is out for six weeks.