Henderson impressed by Leinster style

Leinster's rugby identity has really impressed Iain Henderson.

Leo Cullen’s side may well lie in store for Ulster down the road, depending on how the United Rugby Championship play-offs go.

The teams could meet in a final, should Dan McFarland’s men beat Munster and the winners of the DHL Stormers-Edinburgh match and Leinster work their way through Glasgow and either the Vodacom Bulls or the Cell C Sharks.

Before all that, the URC champions are in the middle of preparations for their Heineken Champions Cup final against La Rochelle in Marseille on Saturday and Ulster skipper Henderson has been impressed with what he has seen from the Blues, many of whom are his team-mates in the Ireland set-up.

"It’s impressive that you could almost recognise they are Leinster without knowing who’s playing," said the lock when asked what sticks out about the four in the row URC champions.

"The way they play, their shape is very impressive, how well drilled throughout the whole team for the whole game.

"One team that did it well before that sticks in my mind is Connacht when they won the championship [in 2016].

"They played their shape very well and they got into the flow of games and I felt it worked really well for Connacht and Leinster do that really well too."

Ulster were knocked out of Europe by Toulouse in the last-16 but hooker Rob Herring says that they are going in the right direction in terms of creating a pure identity in the manner that Leinster have done.

"I think we are getting there," he said.

"I’m sure you’ve seen a big shift in our game over the last number of years. Hendy hit the nail on the head there, it doesn’t really matter who is [in the Leinster side], they all seem to be able to execute in the style they need to and it’s