Prepped and primed Leinster gear up for five-star test

Shorn of the distraction of a derby against Munster, Leo Cullen cannot no longer ignore the question.

Are Leinster a better outfit than 13 months ago when they fell at the semi-final stage to Saturday's Heineken Champions Cup final opponents La Rochelle?

The facts are that, unlike that match at the Stade Marcel Deflandre, they can call upon the services of Johnny Sexton, Jamison Gibson-Park and Caelan Doris, who all missed the game last year through injury.

Add in the development and form of Andrew Porter and Ross Molony, with Dan Sheehan, Cian Healy and Michael Ala’alatoa in reserve, and the four-time winners look primed.

That’s before you take into account that La Rochelle will be missing influential scrum-half Tawera Kerr-Barlow, while lock Will Skelton has just 13 minutes under his belt, against Stade in Marseille on Saturday, following a lay-off due to a calf injury.

"It's very hard to say," said Cullen when asked if his team was better than last season when they lost 32-23 to Ronan O’Gara’s side.

"We tried to plan the season out well with some of the front-liners, making sure that they are able to fire when it really matters.

"We'll see. It's going to be a massive challenge, isn't it?

"Playing the games in France, it's a hard thing to do, whether that's in a team's home ground or even on the neutral grounds, as we have seen in some of the semi-finals in particular in France over the years.

"Obviously, we played in La Rochelle's home ground, an empty stadium last year, but they beat us fair and square.

"We were in the game, I thought we started the game well, maybe could have been further ahead in the first-half. So how we manage the game, understand some of the threats that La Rochelle will pose, which is many.

"Understanding