Jacques Nienaber: Soul searching key to Leinster toppling La Rochelle

Chasing the Sun 2 puts the Netflix Full Contact effort firmly in the shade.

The producers gained incredible access to the Springboks camp, which was led by Rassie Erasmus and now Leinster senior coach Jacques Nienaber, as they plotted a way to a second successive World Cup title last year.

One of their methods was to find the 'soul' of a team and then, well, proceed to crush it one bone at a time.

Scotland’s, they decided, was movement through their out-half Finn Russell – put him under enough pressure and that was the game.

Ireland’s soul, according to Nienaber, was "how technical they are and how... information-driven they are".

While they lost to Andy Farrell men’s in the pool tie, they went on to collect the souls of France, England and New Zealand, like the Grim Reaper in green, before lifting the Webb Ellis for the fourth time. Hey – whatever works.

The South African was up for media duty early this week and while he was able to rattle off La Rochelle’s obvious industry specifications, he smiled and chuckled when he was asked how he would describe the soul of the team he is tasked with knocking out in Saturday’s Investec Champions Cup quarter-final (5.30pm, live on RTÉ).

"I’m probably not going to go into that," he told RTÉ Sport

"It’s a good question and it’s something that we would definitely have to find out in the next couple of days between ourselves as coaches and the players.

"I would probably stay clear of that."

Another striking element from the SuperSport documentary was how deep a well Nienaber and Erasmus had available to draw inspiration from: Mandela, winning the World Cup in 1995, the birth of the Rainbow Nation, poverty and hardship, unemployment, the energy crisis, the list goes on.

In the absence of such