Leinster's latest Euro tilt, Ireland run into French wall

Neil Treacy· Host0:00

[rock music] Hello, and welcome along to the RTE Rugby Podcast. It is semifinals week in the Champions and Challenge Cup. Leinster host Toulon on Saturday afternoon, 3:00 PM kickoff at Aviva Stadium. Live commentary on RTE Radio 1 for that. Bordeaux against Bath the following afternoon in the other semifinal. Also, Ulster in Challenge Cup semifinals, half past 5:00 kickoff against Exeter Chiefs in Belfast on Saturday. Montpellier against Dragons [notification sound] is the other semifinal on Sunday lunchtime. It's a break week in the Guinness Women's Six Nations, but later in the show I'll be joined by Hannah O'Connor to talk through Ireland's defeat [notification sound] to France in Clermont. An absolutely cracking game [notification sound] at Stade Marcel-Michelin, and a brilliant occasion as well. Sportpodcasts@rte.ie for your emails and thoughts about whatever you want. We'll hopefully get to a couple of them towards the end of this section of the pod as well. For now, though, Bernard Jackman is here in the podcast studio. Bernard, how are you this morning?

Bernard Jackman· Guest1:00

Very good, thank you.

Neil Treacy· Host1:01

And Johnny Murphy's also on the line. Morning, Johnny.

Johne Murphy· Guest1:03

Morning, guys. How are you?

Neil Treacy· Host1:05

We'll get right into it. Leinster's latest, latest Champions Cup semifinal. Six seasons in a row they've been here. Three wins, two defeats in that time. Toulon the opponents this week. Bit of a surprise that we're at the Aviva rather than Murrayfield, I think, uh, probably would've thought a few weeks ago. But Leinster off the back of a 29-26 defeat to Benetton, uh, at the weekend, where a lot of their frontline players started.