Leinster out to upset ‘Real Madrid of rugby’ in Champions Cup, says Heaslip

Jamie Heaslip has braced his Leinster team for a European Champions Cup semi-final showdown on Sunday against a team he describes as “the Real Madrid of rugby”.

Toulon, the reigning European champions, stand between Leinster – who won the tournament three times in four years in its previous guise as the Heineken Cup – and a place in the final at Twickenham on 2 May.

But a huge task awaits the Ireland number eight Heaslip and his team-mates at the Stade Vélodrome in Marseille. Toulon are just two wins away from the unprecedented achievement of claiming the European crown for three years in succession.

“There’s a good feeling,” said Heaslip, the Leinster skipper.

“There is an excited feeling about it, going over there against a team that is made up of superstars. It’s like the Real Madrid of rugby.

“The challenge that poses for us is massive, and we relish it. We know the work that has to go in in order for us to be in with a chance against these guys.”

Leinster were beaten 29-14 by Toulon in last season’s European quarter-finals, and their illustrious opponents – whose star-filled ranks include Matt Giteau, Bryan Habana and Leigh Halfpenny – will start as firm favourites.

Such is Toulon’s enviable strength that Steffon Armitage, the 2014 European player of the year, finds himself on the bench, providing cover for a starting back-row of Juan Smith, Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe and Chris Masoe.

For their part, Leinster are unchanged from the team that defeated Bath in the quarter-finals a fortnight ago, when six Ian Madigan penalties secured a tense 18-15 Aviva Stadium triumph.

The Leinster hooker Sean Cronin added: “It’s going to be a huge, incredibly tough test going down to the two-time champions.

“They are absolutely packed full of superstars and we know how tough it’s going to be.

“We just have to focus on ourselves and try and implement the gameplan and have the desire and intensity with that to go to such a tough place like that and get a result.

“It’s not often that we go into games as underdogs.

“They are an awesome side and they demand a lot of respect with [the] performances they’ve brought to this competition in recent years.

“We know we are going to have to put in by far the best performance of this season – if not the past few seasons – to come anywhere close to getting a result.”

For the Wales full-back and goal-kicker Halfpenny, meanwhile, Sunday’s clash gives him the chance of reaching a European final after he joined Toulon last summer.

Halfpenny, who was part of the Cardiff Blues team beaten in a penalty shootout by Leicester at the semi-final stage six years ago, said: “It was a great disappointment, but I have the opportunity to play another semi-final now.

“It will be a huge game against a team packed with quality. It will be complicated, and we need to be 100% ready.

“This is one of the biggest matches of my career, and it’s also a great match for Toulon.

“With the success the club has had over the past two years, we do not want to stop there.”