La Rochelle v Leinster preview: Plenty on the line as old foes meet 

The sides face off in France on Sunday. 

Dan Sheehan of Leinster after his side's victory in the Investec Champions Cup quarter-final match between Leinster and La Rochelle at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

Long gone are the days when the European Cup was the competition that kept on giving. We take our kicks now where we can get them, especially in the early stages of the Investec Champions version. It makes games like this one all the more appealing when they swing around.

No-one’s tournament ambitions will be shattered come the final whistle in the Stade Marcel Deflandre as Sunday afternoon gives away to Sunday evening, but one team’s bid to make the final in Cardiff will have shipped a significant blow in this port city.

Win and you go a long, long way to booking a home berth through the knockouts.

Leinster came here in December of 2023 and earned some slim revenge for losing the previous two deciders to the Maritime. More significant was the fact that they diverted Ronan O’Gara’s side towards an unwanted South African trek come the spring.

Edging the Stormers in Cape Town was no small feat but it left the Top 14 side running on fumes a week later when they were pumped 40-13 by Leo Cullen’s side in the Aviva in the last eight. Fast forward a few weeks and Leinster were losing a URC semi in Durban.

So, yeah, a win here will go a long way.

Thing is, these two could be playing in the park for nothing more than pride or stubbornness and it would draw a crowd. La Rochelle’s place will be sold out for a 102nd consecutive game for this one. Nobody is expecting it to be pretty.

“It’s winter rugby,” said Cullen. “We played in La Rochelle 13 months ago, the rain is coming in sideways and it’s very difficult conditions. It becomes more of a dogfight. It’s not going to be the Harlem Globetrotters, throwing the ball around, is it?

“It becomes territory, the kicking game becomes a big part of it. The conditions look like they are going to be quite good so hopefully we will have more a fluid game and play more because that’s ultimately what we want.” Fluid is as fluid does.

Leinster have shoved their chips onto the defensive side of the table this year as Jacques Nienaber’s blitz approach and uber-physical mentality beds in. La Rochelle have the heft and the class to meet them in that. This won’t be one for the squeamish.

It is, in many ways, a first proper test of that evolving philosophy and one that hasn’t met with universal favour. Leinster have never wanted for physicality or menace – the Ladyboy days are long gone – but some feel the scales have shifted too far from the attack.

“From a defensive point of view, we have made a very conscious effort that we want to be more aggressive,” Cullen explained. “We talk specifically about this fixture. We’ve lost two Champions Cup finals to this team, and were we a little bit too passive defensively?

“We can kick these topics around the place and have a debate but DNA, what do we want? We want to be an aggressive defensive team. Hopefully we see that this weekend, all those facets and parts of putting together a rugby team come together on the day.” The visitors have named a squad bejewelled with 23 internationals. More again miss out. Tadhg Furlong will play his first game in 13 weeks. The experiment of starting Andrew Porter on the bench and springing him early will get a rerun after its recent unveiling in Limerick.

There is no 6-2 split on the bench but Porter is joined on it by Thomas Clarkson, Gus McCarthy, Rabah Slimani, Jack Conan and Jordie Barrett with Cullen referencing here the way they let those two finals slip in the closing stages.

The past is never just the past.

The use of Snyman and Barrett as replacements will fuel suspicions that the province is constrained by the IRFU in how they use them in big games. If they are then it’s a first-world problem for a side looking for a 12th win in 12 games this season.

O’Gara’s team has won four from its last five but the Munster legend has been characteristically honest in these pages by sharing thoughts on the noise and negativity surrounding them as their form waxes and wanes.

This, he said last week, will amount to a “wake-up call” for them.

The hosts have no Will Skelton, so often the rock on which Leinster’s ambitions perished, but a flexing 7-1 bench split redresses that balance. Tolu Latu and Teddy Thomas are suspended. Jonathan Danty, again, and Pierre Bourgarit are others languishing on the casualty list.

It’s still a XV and a 23 bursting with ability and players who have come through for the club in the past. This is not a third-string Toulouse side visiting this week, it is a locked and loaded rival off the same top shelf.

That should super-charge both of them.

“We are up against a proper team with so much experience and they are a crafty bunch,” said Cullen. “They have a good understanding of what they want to do there and they have proved across the last few seasons that they have lots of big-game players there.” The Leinster boss followed that up with a familiar musing about a French club’s ability to attract top talent from around the globe. A bit rich given their choice of bench. This is their sixth meeting inside four years and they are more alike than they might like to think.

LA ROCHELLE: B Dulin; J Nowell, U Seuteni, J Favres, D Leyds; A Hastoy, T Kerr-Barlow; R Wardi, Q Lespiaucq, U Atonio; T Lavault, K Douglas; P Boudehent, O Jegou, G Alldritt.

Replacements: N Sutidze, A Kaddouri, GH Colombe-Reazel, U Dillane, L Botia, J Cancoriet, M Haddad, H Bosmorin.

LEINSTER: J Osborne, T O’Brien, G Ringrose, R Henshaw, J O’Brien, S Prendergast, J Gibson-Park; C Healy, R Kelleher, T Furlong, J McCarthy, J Ryan, R Baird, J van der Flier, C Doris.

Replacements: G McCarthy, A Porter, R Slimani, RG Snyman, J Conan, L McGrath, R Byrne, J Barrett.

Referee: Nika Amashukeli (GRU).