Italy star to miss WXV 2 in South Africa through injury

I suspect it’s the other way around today. Leinster needing to contain the Bulls. The Bulls will be passionate today. Playing for Cornal and knowing they have nothing to lose. I’m hoping they use there big forwards to overwhelm the Leinster defence early on and put on a few early scores.

If it’s tight or Leinster get ahead early - game set match Leinster. There’ll be a few cards today too - I’m sure.

Against Northampton in the Champions Cup semi-final, they were 3 points down with 5 minutes to go, and with three separate possessions in the strike zone (two of which being penalties), they could not score. That’s a classic “find a way to win” situation, in which champion teams get the job done regardless of the uncontrollables.

Commentary like Ferris’s above tends to talk about the easy topics, like how many players are internationals etc, but the big questions are all about the track record of putting it all together and winning the high pressure moments. Leinster have a much more decorated squad, for sure, but then so did the Sharks in the semi-final. The Bulls have relied more on having a good plan, good execution and good in-game adjustments.

My view - if Leinster can break the back of this game early then they will win. But if the game is still close going into the fourth quarter then the Bulls ability to find a way will prevail.

The idea that we're missing the Saffers more than they're missing us is a nice theory, but our post Saffer generation is actually better than anything we've had since the Whitelock Brodie generation. I don't see as many young Saffer forwards tearing it up in test rugby like Eben and co were in their early and mid 20s.