Croker return sparks memories but there's no going back to noughties frontier

Rugby returns to returns to the home of the GAA on Saturday afternoon for the first time since Ireland hosted Scotland on the last day of the 2010 Six Nations.

And the Investec Champions Cup semi-final between Leinster and Northampton Saints (5.30pm, live on RTÉ) will be just the second ever club rugby match held at the iconic venue following the memorable Heineken Cup semi-final of 2009 when the hosts beat Munster.

Leinster, after years of being subservient to their dear rivals, announced themselves to the top tier in the most emphatic fashion, bouncing the defending champions out of the competition.

It was the changing of a guard who hasn't budged since.

The Blues embellished that 25-6 win with a hard-fought victory over Leicester in a Murrayfield finale three weeks later to claim the first of four European Cup titles.

Footage of the game and in particular Brian O’Driscoll’s runaway intercept, the Ireland centre being chased forlornly by Ronan O’Gara in a Group 2 race, is a staple of RTÉ's Reeling in the Years.

The clash, three years on from Munster handing Leinster their own posterior in a Lansdowne Road semi-final, also marked the coming of age of Johnny Sexton, whose youthful exuberance was captured with his most un-rugby-like goading of O’Gara in the immediate aftermath of Gordon D’Arcy’s try.

The country had just come out of the Celtic Tiger phase and this was one of the last hurrahs for the attendance of 82,208 - at the time, a record for a club rugby game, and only surpassed when Harlequins met Saracens at Wembley in 2014 with 83,889 there for the Premiership clash.

It came less than two months after most of the protagonists had brought Ireland to a first Grand Slam in 61 years and it was full of bollock and bite, a