Caelan Doris hopeful Jacques Nienaber impact will help Leinster reclaim Champions Cup crown

"It's about staying in the fight for the full 80, making everything a contest; whether it's a ruck, a tackle or a barge; whatever it is, that's the way he looks at it. He's been brilliant and hopefully we can go one step further."

FINAL COUNTDOWN: Caelan Doris during a Leinster Rugby media conference at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, England. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

Having lost the last two Champions Cup finals to La Rochelle by a total of just four points, could this be the day Leinster’s appointment of Jacques Nienaber finally brings a fifth star above their crest?

Toulouse, led by the unique talents of Antoine Dupont and half-back partner Romain Ntamack as well as their formidable heavy brigade of forwards, will stand by at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday afternoon (2:45pm), ready to derail Leinster and their dream of a first Champions Cup success since 2018.

The Irish province has been through their share of misery since then, losing finals in 2019, 2022 and 2023 with the last two deciders, at the hand of La Rochelle’s Ronan O’Gara, progressively painful for Leo Cullen and his squad, losing 24-21 in Marseille two years ago and 27-26 on home soil at Aviva Stadium 12 months later.

So the arrival of a senior coach of Nienaber’s quality and unquestioned success to replace Stuart Lancaster in the weeks following his guiding of South Africa to back-to-back World Cup victories made total sense in terms of unlocking the mystery of winning major finals.

While both head coach Cullen and matchday skipper Caelan Doris spoke on Friday of Nienaber’s impact on their defence across a season in which Leinster not only won their opening pool game at La Rochelle but then crushed the Top 14 club’s three-in-a-row bid back in Dublin at the quarter-final stage, the province’s co-captain James Ryan revealed the finals-week mentality the former Springbok boss has brought to bear in the final preparations for this Toulouse showdown and in particular in what it takes to get the job done when it matters most.

South Africa delivered knockout blows by a single point in all three of their knockout matches on their path to a successful World Cup title defence, beating hosts France in the quarter-finals 29-28, England 16-15 in a similarly nail-biting semi-final, before closing the deal with a 12-11 victory over New Zealand in the decider.

A little bit of that would be very welcome for the 20,000-plus Leinster supporters expected in north London for a mouth-watering final.

"With South Africa at the World Cup, you saw how close the games were; quarter, semi, final - one point games that they were coming out on the right side of it and we were coming out the wrong side of games like that at Leinster.

"So, being able to pick his brains on a week like this.... unfortunately, like he said to us before, there is no magic pill.

"But it's about staying in the fight for the full 80, making everything a contest; whether it's a ruck, a tackle or a barge; whatever it is, that's the way he looks at it.

"So, yeah, he's been brilliant and hopefully we can go one step further."

There is no magic pill and Leinster’s 20-17 semi-final victory at Croke Park, in which they switched off early in the second half and permitted English Premiership leaders Northampton Saints back into a contest in which they had previously failed to fire a shot suggests the propensity to fade out of games seemingly already won is still a possibility.

The hope will be that scare was a sufficient wake-up call against a team unlikely to start this final as poorly as the Saints did in Dublin three weeks ago, while Leinster’s first-half performance – they appeared to kill the game off with James Lowe’s hat-trick try for a 20-3 lead just after the break – was scintillating.

Leinster Rugby Captain's Run at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Pic Credit: Billy Stickland, Inpho.

Doris was particularly pleased with the coming of age of Nienaber’s newly-introduced “offensive” defence system.

“If you look at our first half against Northampton was right up there, it showed how far it progressed since (December 2, that first game with Nienaber on board against) Connacht.

“I think everyone has bought into it massively. I think the ability Toulouse have in attack and them averaging 40 plus points, I think we’re going to need to be properly on it and an awareness at times … they’re going to get turnovers, they will get line breaks, they have such quality, and it is about our effort, our work rate and our scramble and enjoying that and loving that. It’s definitely going to be a test but we’re looking forward to it.”

It is a match-up for everyone to look forward to, two genuine European heavyweights going toe-to-toe in the Northern Hemisphere’s biggest club game for the first time, and with individual head-to-head contests to grace any top-level contest.

Cullen is banking on a squad effort, loading his bench with six forwards and sacrificing one of his backline replacements to redeploy the battery that proved so effective in the quarter-final win over La Rochelle.

Having the likes of James Ryan, Jack Conan and Josh van der Flier held in reserve to augment a starting back-five of forwards in Joe McCarthy, Jason Jenkins, Ryan Baird, Will Connors and Doris is enough to give Toulouse’s big beasts pause for thought.

The head coach is banking on them all making a decisive impression.

LEINSTER: H Keenan; J Larmour, R Henshaw, J Osborne, J Lowe; R Byrne, J Gibson-Park; A Porter, D Sheehan, T Furlong; J McCarthy, J Jenkins; R Baird, W Connors, C Doris – captain.

Replacements: R Kelleher, C Healy, M Ala’alatoa, J Ryan, J Conan, L McGrath, C Frawley, J van der Flier.

TOULOUSE: B Kinghorn; J C Mallia, P Costes, P Akhi, M Lebel; R Ntamack, A Dupont – captain; C Baille, P Mauvaka, D Aldegheri; T Flament, E Meafou; J Willis, F Cros, A Roumat.

Replacements: J Marchand, R Neti, J Merkler, R Arnold, J Brennan, P Graou, S Chocobares, T Ramos.

Referee: Matthew Carley (England)