IN CONTRAST TO their recent visits to the venue, the Leinster squad appear to be opting for a more reserved build-up to a European Champions Cup Round of 16 bout against Harlequins in Croke Park this Saturday.

15 years on from their famous Heineken Cup semi-final win over Munster, the eastern province returned to GAA HQ on 4 May, 2024 for a penultimate round clash with Northampton Saints in Europe’s top-tier. Ireland international Dan Sheehan started for Leinster in this 20-17 victory, but was still recovering from an anterior cruciate ligament injury when the Blues faced the aforementioned Munster on Jones’ Road in the United Rugby Championship last October.

Whereas the Leinster players got a sense of the stadium’s history in advance of these fixtures, their forthcoming duel with Harlequins is mainly being viewed as just another game by Sheehan and his team-mates. Yet a large crowd is expected to pass through the Croke Park turnstiles this weekend and that is more than enough reason for the Dubliner to be excited about their latest journey to the north side of the city.

“I remember for the Northampton game we would have talked about the history of it and we would have delved a bit more deep into what it means to play in Croke Park and the history behind it. I think a lot of the lads and I think probably everyone has played there now,” Sheehan explained at a Leinster media briefing earlier this week.

“In some ways it’s just another game and I think lads are used to it, but it’s an opportunity to play in front of, I think it’s 60,000 plus supporters at the minute. Which is crazy. I think we’ll just sort of focus on that side of things with the amount of people that have shown up to support us and build on the momentum of last week [the province’s URC triumph against the Sharks].”

Of course, Saturday’s fixture has its own interesting history attached to it thanks to the infamous ‘Bloodgate’ incident from the clash between the two teams in the 2009 Heineken Cup quarter-final at Twickenham Stoop – which directly preceded that last-four encounter between Leinster and Munster in Croke Park.

While Sheehan has some awareness of that showdown with Harlequins, he was only 10 years old when the game took place and acknowledged he didn’t ‘remember it happening at the time’. In fact, despite facing them in pre-season friendlies in 2021 and 2022, Leinster haven’t played ‘Quins in a competitive game since a Champions Cup pool stage encounter at the Aviva Stadium on 13 December 2014.

Therefore, when it comes to their analysis for this weekend, Sheehan and the eastern province are focusing on how the English Premiership outfit have fared in the present term.

“We played them in a pre-season I remember, two or three seasons ago. It was probably one of my first games involved in the senior team. I’ve actually been enjoying the prep this week because they’re quite an enjoyable team to watch. Really nice attacking shape, score some really nice tries, good starter plays.

“My mindset this week is the squad that has played this season. They have some key players. Marcus Smith, [Alex] Dombrandt, [Chandler] Cunningham-South. These are big players for them. That’s all I’ve looked into, to be honest. Which I think is the way it should be.”

When you consider he didn’t miss a single game for Ireland during the recently completed Six Nations Championship – coming off the bench in the opening two rounds before starting the remaining three – it is easy to forget Sheehan has only played once for Leinster during the current season.

Having worked his way back from an ACL injury sooner than many had anticipated, Sheehan started a URC encounter against the Stormers in the Aviva on 25 January of this year and helped himself to a brace of tries in an eventual 36-12 win for Leinster.

He went on from there to score five tries in as many appearances for Ireland in the spring international window and having missed out on so much of their campaign to date, Sheehan is eager to make the biggest possible impact on his return to provincial duty.

“It was obviously nice to get that Stormers game before the Six Nations. Obviously, they are different styles and trying to go back into our system you can’t replicate it really at training a whole lot. It’s nice for me to get back playing in a blue jersey again,” Sheehan added.

“I’ve obviously missed a lot of the season with Leinster, so I feel I need to contribute as much as I can. Get back to where I was, which I think is nearly there. It’s a massive motivation for me to contribute to the group this season and to do everything I can to help the lads around me or to show up on the big day.”

Daire Walsh