Garry Ringrose hails Stuart Lancaster's influence ahead of Champions Cup final

For a core of this Leinster team, Stuart Lancaster has been a guiding presence along their journey through professional rugby.

Garry Ringrose was just out of his rookie year of professional rugby when the former England boss was unveiled as the province's new senior coach in 2016, the Cumbrian arriving in Dublin with a point to prove after England's World Cup failure a year earlier.

Now 28, Ringrose is one of the key men for both province and country, one of the big leaders and big talkers in a side looking to win their fifth Heineken Champions Cup.

The centre wasn't always so vocal. He recalls a time in one of Lancaster's early seasons, when the coach put microphones on players to gauge how much they were communicating with each other on the training pitch.

"I would have been really quiet and, like that, he'd challenge you every session and review it with you as well," Ringrose says, as he looks back on Lancaster's seven year spell with the province.

The Englishman will depart after today's Champions Cup final, moving to a new chapter of his career at Racing 92, and Ringrose says he'll be leaving a lasting impression on the squad.

"It would be hard to put into words or give full credit to the amount that he has helped me. When he first came in, I was 21. From the off, he would have challenged guys.

"As a young lad, I would have been used to going into a meeting and waiting to be told what to think or what to do and before he would talk about anything, he'd ask: 'What are your thoughts on the game?'

"So he’d challenge you to have a point of view. He’d put you on the spot. It forced you to think, away from meetings, away from the pitch - when you were watching rugby - to think about it in a more analytical way, to give your