Daire Walsh

With their Champions Cup semi-final against Toulon now just six days away, anticipation is building around the Leinster camp as they bid to reach their fourth top-tier European decider in just seven seasons.

However, if they are to booktheir place in the May 2 showpiece at Twickenham, they will need to be at the peak of their powers against the Top 14 outfit, who finished the past two seasons as Heineken Cup champions.

In the aftermath of their quarter-final win over Bath, Blues full-back Rob Kearney made headlines by suggesting the squad’s preparation was of a higher standard that it had been all season.

As he reflected on these comments at the launch of the Leinster Rugby Summer Camps last Wednesday, Kearney clarified it wasn’t a case of him taking aim at the Leinster coaching staff.

“That wasn’t me having a pop off coaches. 90% of the preparation has to be done by players ourselves on a given week. The players were well-prepared last week,” Kearney explained.

“Your preparation is always better come Europe. When it’s knock-out rugby, it’s better. Last week was my first week back in the provincial set-up since Heineken Cup Round 6, I think. So, it’s a big gap.”

Although reaching the last-four of Europe’s premier rugby competitionrepresents progress for Leinster (they last appeared at the semi-final stage in 2012), there has been a certain level of frustration about the way Matt O’Connor’s charges have performed this season. Kearney is aware of the frustration fans have been experiencing, but he is nevertheless excited about the prospect of a European semi-final in Marseilles on Sunday.

“We are massively excited to be going down to play a semi-final. Everyone outside and supporters might be frustrated we are not fulfilling our potential, but it is a difficult thing to do sometimes. We are still winning, so there is not a huge amount of attention paid to it from inside the group and inside our ranks.

“We do a huge amount of review of games

We are unbelievably critical of ourselves. We have just come from a team review that lasted over 60 minutes. We are pin-pointing the smallest of things we can improve on. You know, we are not oblivious to the fact there is still a huge amount of things we need to improve on, but we are still very excited by the opportunities available to us,” Kearney added. 

With a star-studded squad at their disposal, Toulon will pose a serious threat throughout the field. However, since joining the club in 2011, outside centre Mathieu Bastareaud has been a major asset to Bernard Laporte’s side.

When Toulon overcame Clermont Auvergne in the 2013 Heineken Cup final at the Aviva Stadium, the Creteil native was awarded man-of-the-match. Gordon D’Arcy has played against the physically-imposing Bastareaud at club and international level, and knows what he can bring to the table for Toulon.

“He is just a big unit that is pretty hard to tackle. They just use him in that role, and he’s pretty good on the poach. At 120 kilos, he’s pretty hard to shift. He gets his team a lot of go-forward and he gets his team a lot of penalties at the breakdown. He’s actually a really good defender as well,” D’Arcy warned.

“He is the same as someone like Jamie Roberts. He is the focal point for them when they attack. When you’ve got a player who’s that size, who can almost guarantee you go-forward ball, you generally play your football off that. I have chatted to him a couple of times very briefly after games. He’s a pretty nice lad.”

Meanwhile Toulon completed their preparations for the game by moving clear at the Top 14 summit courtesy of a 35-24 victory over Grenoble at the Stade des Alpes.

The defending champions were outscored by four tries to two but the boots of Leigh Halfpenny, Delon Armitage and Frederic Michalak secured victory.

Rory Grice crossed for a third-minute try for the hosts but Toulon hit back through a Matt Giteau touchdown, with Leigh Halfpenny kicking the conversion and two penalties.

Nigel Hunt’s converted try put Grenoble back in front on the half hour but a Halfpenny penalty and Bryan Habana try left them trailing 23-14 at the interval.

Armitage kicked three quick-fire penalties to cancel out Jackson Willison’s try, and Michalak kicked their eighth successful penalty with nine minutes remaining.

Albertus Buckle scored a fourth try for Grenoble late on but it was scant consolation for the hosts.