Clermont Auvergne a familiar test for Leinster's Leo Cullen

Head coach Leo Cullen, left, and senior coach Jacques Nienaber during a Leinster Rugby Squad training session at UCD in Belfield, Dublin. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

The name and format of the tournament has changed. So has Leo Cullen’s own role and even the name of this week’s opposition. The one constant in Leinster’s 23-year history with Clermont Auvergne has been the presence of the province’s head coach.

Cullen was in the second row when Leinster claimed their first ever win on French soil against Saturday’s Champions Cup opponents. They were known as Montferrand back then, Matt Williams was Leinster boss and DJ Carey handed out the visitors’ jerseys.

Different times.

The clubs have met nine times since with the Irish side having just the better of it with six wins in total, among them an extraordinary quarter-final at the RDS in 2010. They shared the spoils from two epic semi-finals, in Bordeaux two years later, and in Lyon on 2017.

“It’s a great rivalry, great fans,” said Cullen, a player in eight of them and a coach for two. “I think of that semi-final in Lyon, just how much yellow there was in the ground, on the way in and even coming out afterwards. There was just a respectful arrival, no animosity there.” 

The sides met seven times in as many years at one point. This is just the second meeting in the last decade and the erstwhile Top 14 giant has lost four of its first six league games so far, the most recent at their own place last week against Bordeaux-Begles.

The hope for the neutral is that they look to rinse the bad taste of that defeat from their mouths and name a side packed with frontline players. 

Do that and the Stade Marcel Michelin, one of the best grounds in world rugby, can take on a life of its own.

“It’s Clermont Auvergne,” said the Leinster head coach. “It’s always going to be a tough challenge, but one that we want to embrace as a team against a team that’s very passionate when they play at home.

“They have a proper fan base there and it’s just one of the greatest places to play, nice high stands, which creates a proper atmosphere on the day.

“You know what you're going to get with a Christophe Urios-coached team, which is a lot of physicality, strong lineout, very good lineout defence and a good lineout maul.” 

Clermont’s Anthime Hemery has signalled an intent to start on the right foot.

“If we continue to brood, we will never get out of it,” said the back row. “We won't play the Bordeaux game again, we have an opportunity to play a big game and show a good side against one of the best teams in Europe.

“We have the opportunity to move forward, to restart the machine, we must seize it.” 

For the visitors it will be a first taste of the newly-introduced bonus-point system whereby a team will have to score three more tries than its opponent to earn it, as opposed to just scoring four tries as before.

The Top 14 has long embraced it. So too has Super Rugby and the English second tier. It’s not a panacea to blowouts but Cullen is a fan of the idea and sees it as a means of ensuring there is more jeopardy in more games.

"It creates more competition for longer in a game. Scoring four tries and you go into cruise control and get the job done... you see less games like that in the Top 14 with the way the bonus point system works. So, we'll see how it plays out in the Champions Cup.” 

Leinster will travel to the continent with a host of key players who have just a game or even less under their belts so far this season. That rustiness was evident at the RDS last weekend when, after a zippy start against Cardiff, they struggled to rediscover their stride.

As ever, there won’t be many tears shed for a club that is so loaded with top-end talent, and Leinster have shown in times past that they are able to come together at short notice, most noticeably in those weeks post-Six Nations.

“Well, we try to get ready because it was not like we figured it out about (this game happening now) last week,” said Cullen. “We’ve known for quite some time, hence why we brought a big group to South Africa and we’ve got everyone running.

“We can’t have any excuses really. We’ve done our best to try and prepare the group as best we possibly can to get to this point, which is an exciting challenge.”