'That’s what you want': Leinster boss Leo Cullen not phased with La Rochelle clash

Leinster head coach Leo Cullen insisted that “you want to be testing yourself against the best teams” after his side’s reward for beating Leicester 36-22 in the Investec Champions Cup is a rematch with La Rochelle.

While Leinster won 16-9 away to the defending champions at the start of this season’s tournament, they have lost their last three knockout encounters, including the 2022 and 2023 finals, so there is a lot riding on next Saturday’s quarter-final at the Aviva Stadium.

Player-of-the-match Jamison Gibson-Park pulled the strings for Cullen’s men, scoring a first-half hat-trick of tries to cancel out Handre Pollard’s early converted effort.

The Tigers used a James Lowe yellow card to cut a 22-10 half-time deficit to seven points with James Cronin crossing, but Robbie Henshaw hit back with a crucial 49th-minute intercept score.

Replacements Jack Conan and Charlie Clare swapped late tries as the Irish province set up a mouth-watering showdown with La Rochelle, who came from 16 points down to win at the Stormers.

Looking forward to renewing rivalries with Ronan O’Gara, Cullen said: “Prepare well for another 80-minute game. Some good, some bad today. We will need lots of good next week, I would imagine, but it’s a great challenge, isn’t it?

“We have seen plenty of each other over the last couple of seasons. That’s what you want. You want to be testing yourself against the best teams that are out there.

“La Rochelle have obviously won the tournament and beat us in two finals. We managed to get a win against them in round one this year, but it’s two good teams going at it.”

On how the game went against the Gallagher Premiership outfit, he added: “I thought Leicester were good, carried strong.

“I thought we looked pretty sharp in attack, obviously Jamison gets a hat-trick of tries in the first half off different good moments of attack.

“I don’t know whether we thinking that was the job done, but there was a few disruptions, bench coming on, it was a bit messy that second half. Maybe all our minds are a little bit guilty of wandering too far ahead sometimes.

“But listen, it’s a win, we’ve got the job done and it’s move on to the next challenge. The great challenge that is.”

Meanwhile, Leicester head coach Dan McKellar was pleased with “parts of the performance” as they head back into the Premiership run-in.

“I just said to the boys, obviously proud of the effort,” he said. “I was disappointed after we played them at Welford Road (in January) and I was annoyed because I felt we missed an opportunity that night.

“I don’t think it’s any different tonight. I thought we created a lot of opportunities.

“We had a poor period of defence from 20 to 40 minutes, where we allowed them to play with quick ruck ball and they’ll hurt you, especially guys like Gibson-Park.

“The intercept was a killer, that’s a 14-point swing. There’s a lot of positives to take out of it, but just frustrated that we missed those chances.”