Stuart Lancaster’s focus at Leinster exemplifies club’s approach to success

To sum up why Leinster have been head and shoulders above the rest in Europe this season, and why they head into Saturday’s Champions Cup final against La Rochelle as favourites, Stuart Lancaster provides the perfect example.

I worked with Stuart during his time with England and his abilities as a coach, first and foremost, were obvious. The problem was he inherited a team that, from a PR and a sporting perspective, had failed at the 2011 World Cup. He took it upon himself to try to change everything, from ensuring the players reconnected with supporters, to overhauling all facets of a team who had underperformed by going out in the quarter-finals.

It was his first international job and it speaks volumes about his character that he wanted to take it all on himself. Ultimately, that proved too big a challenge but the reason why he is proving so successful with Leinster, where he is responsible for shaping the attack, is that he has taken all that experience and channelled it into just one aspect of the club. It typifies what Leinster are about – so many good individuals focusing on doing their specific job very well and the ripple effect is the synchronicity of how they play. It makes them such a difficult opponent to stop.

It sounds simple, but they have brilliant players, brilliant coaches and an infrastructure that allows them to be the best version of themselves. When I say infrastructure, I mean a setup that enables their first team to stay at home rather than go to South Africa for United Rugby Championship fixtures. Spending that time working on unit skills, recovery, cohesion – you cannot overestimate how much good that does for a team. They effectively go into these mini pre-seasons where they are finessing