Brian O’Driscoll: Why Leinster’s underwhelming performances can benefit Irish giants in Champions Cup semi-final despite ‘nervousness’
Leinster in action in the 2026 Investec Champions Cup and, inset, former Ireland captain Brian O'Driscoll.
Leinster and Ireland legend Brian O’Driscoll admits to a “nervousness” ahead of their Investec Champions Cup semi-final against RC Toulon this weekend.
The Irish province will take on the French outfit at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday with a place in the showpiece event in Bilbao on the line. Leo Cullen’s men have often been the standard-setter in Europe, dominating in the United Rugby Championship and the earlier rounds of the Champions Cup.
However, their performances have quite often been subpar during the 2025/26 campaign and they warmed up for this clash with a shock 29-26 defeat to Benetton in Italy.
Strong Leinster team misfires
Cullen named a strong team for the encounter against the Italians, which included the likes of Rieko Ioane, Jamison Gibson-Park, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Furlong, Josh van der Flier and Ireland captain Caelan Doris.
Leinster do have some key injuries, though, particularly in the front-row and they suffered another blow when Furlong went off in Treviso. The tighthead has joined looseheads Andrew Porter, Jack Boyle, Paddy McCarthy and Alex Usanov on the sidelines ahead of the Toulon encounter.
Porter and Furlong could still make it but they remain significant doubts for the semi-final encounter. In previous years, the Dublin-based side have been feared by their opponents, but O’Driscoll believes that the Frenchmen will sense an opportunity.
“They’re going to come after Leinster, they’re going to come after the scrum,” he told Off The Ball. “Even if you think about it, a player like [back-rower] Max Deegan, who has been very effective coming off the bench, is also suspended.
“Now you’re delving deeper and deeper. I’m not lacking confidence with it but it feels like it’s such a different journey to a semi-final for this Leinster team.”
Despite their mixed form, O’Driscoll reckons that it could prove beneficial coming into the latter stages of the competition. There has always been a weight of expectation on their shoulders, which they have constantly failed to overcome, but there is not quite the same demands placed on Leinster this time around.
“They’ve been more often that not in the top two teams in the competition in the last four or five years and then fallen at the [final] hurdle, whereas they’ve come into this with smaller expectation by the neutral and by people watching from afar,” he said.
‘This will be a grind’
“Maybe there’s a nervousness around Leinster fans, certainly there’s a nervousness around me as an ex-player, but maybe that expectation just dampens things a little bit and keeps us in check, rather than immediately looking ahead to Bilbao.
“This will be a grind against Toulon. They’re coming across to try and build their new legacy – the rebuild of Toulon and to get back into European honours. Leinster are going to have to produce one of their better displays even to find their way into the final.”
