Leinster boss Leo Cullen: La Rochelle rematch 'gets the juices flowing'

Penny for Leo Cullen's thoughts when Manie Libbok was lining up that conversion.

The Stormers out-half had La Rochelle's Champions Cup destiny on the instep of his right foot.

At that point, of course, Leinster hadn't beaten Leicester - that would come later in the evening - but given the history between Ronan O'Gara and Cullen's sides over the last four seasons, he could be forgiven for getting slightly ahead of himself.

"Eh, I thought it looked quite windy, so there was a chance he was going to miss," said Cullen with the broadest of smiles.

The Springbok, who missed two kicks when Ireland beat South Africa at the World Cup, hit it high and well wide, Will Skelton's raised fist under the posts the signal that La Rochelle had survived.

Having trailed 16-0 with 31 minutes left, they scraped through 22-21.

While Jamison Gibson-Park was near perfect in Saturday night's 36-22 win, Leinster laboured for spells and passed up numerous opportunities to kill the game off.

So it was refreshing to see Cullen concede the possibility that a then-potential rematch against their nemesis, which will take place on Saturday at 5.30pm at the Aviva Stadium, may have affected his squad.

"I don't know, it’s hard to be inside the mind of a player, but yeah, I don’t know," he said.

"Eight o’clock kick-off, sitting around watching games all day, the narrative, people talking as if you just have to turn up and Leicester are going to roll over – that is never going to be the case, was it?"

Asked how much better he feels his side will have to be to earn a first knock-out win over Stade Rochelais, he said: "You tell me! A bit probably!

"It depends how they well they play.

"The main thing is just to control what we can and that’s prepare well now. Prepare well