The majority of the Irish team that runs out at Stade de France for next month’s Six Nations opener will also be playing against La Rochelle at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday.
The fate of both Leinster and Irelandis inextricably linked.
As the province continue their fight to regain peak form, the national team’s success or failure in the Six Nations will be determined by the level of improvement the D4 team can achieve over their next two outings in the Champions Cup.
The current problems facing Leinster and Ireland have their foundation in the 2025 Lions tour.
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In supplying such an unprecedented number of players to the Lions tour of Australia last summer, Leinster were always going to suffer at the beginning of the 2025-26 season. As a former Irish Lion recently pointed out to me, this is not just because of the mental and physical fatigue that is part of every Lions tour.
It is also because, in the months before the tour, players are striving to peak, both physically and mentally, across the Six Nations and Champions Cup to get selected for the tour. Once selected, the enormous pressure of competing to make the test team begins.
The price for the season-long mental and physical battle to achieve selection with the Lions is paid in the months after such an emotionally pulsating yet draining experience.
Last October, as Leinster understandably struggled, the reality was clear. It would take until early 2026 for the Lions players to fully recover from their exertions in Australia.
This observation has been backed up by the results.
Since the November internationals, Leinster have won six matches in a row. While none of these wins have contained 80 minutes of exceptional rugby, the Leinster performance curve is angling upwards. However, they will need to continue getting better at a much faster rate if they are to win silverware in May and if Ireland are to have any hope of competing against France.
We can be guaranteed that Fabien Galthie will select a French team brimming with players from Toulouse and Bordeaux. Both clubs have been playing some glorious running rugby.
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Toulouse are leading the Top 14 table. Two weeks ago, they delivered a majestic performance in trouncing La Rochelle 60-14. La Rochelle were not terrible; it was simply a case of their opponents being ridiculously impressive.
The wonderful news for everyone who loves rugby is that Antoine Dupont has returned from his knee reconstruction and is once again playing to a standard far above every other human being on the planet. His vision to identify space, sometimes 40 metres away, and then get the ball to that space by running, passing or kicking, is like nothing I have ever witnessed.
When he reunites in the French backline with the scintillating speed of Bordeaux’s Louis Bielle-Biarrey and Damian Penaud on the wings, it will be an awesome combination.
Toulouse are playing a running, ball-in-hand, off-loading gameplan that is true to their DNA. Just as Ireland once played Leinster’s gameplan, France will play a very similar style to Toulouse. You will not find reliance on a horrendous number of box kicks in the Toulouse match plan. While far too many teams have lazy coaches that simply copy and paste other teams’ tactics, the leading French clubs remain highly creative.
[ Josh van der Flier has his homework done for latest La Rochelle examOpens in new window ]
So, on day one of the Six Nations, Ireland will face a powerful and dynamic French team. To compete, Ireland must improve markedly from the form they showed in November.
I do suspect that last summer both Leo Cullen and Ronan O’Gara circled Saturday, January 10th, as a key date on their annual plan.
By their own high standards, La Rochelle’s form this season has been patchy. As always, the Top 14 is a tight competition with only 12 points separating third from 12th. La Rochelle are seventh, sitting snuggly in the tightness of the pack. They have carried their patchy Top 14 form into the Champions Cup, with a bad loss to the Stormers away and a convincing home win over a weakened Leicester. Their 66-0 demolition of Toulon last weekend makes gauging their 2026 form even harder.
Success in the Champions Cup has as much to do with mindset as it does with talent. Organisations that are successful in Europe understand there is a cultural and mental difference in the intensity required to win in the Champions Cup when compared to their domestic competitions. A handful of clubs have that organisation-wide mentality. The majority don’t. That is why so often we see the same clubs, year after year, in the latter stages of the Champions Cup.
As the head coach, Ronan O’Gara has successfully instilled that winning mindset at La Rochelle. This has empowered them to win two European competitions. When that is combined with the history of bitterness and acrimony between these two clubs, the one thing we can guarantee is that both teams will be physically and mentally up for the contest.
Leo Cullen will be ramming home the fact that it does not matter where La Rochelle sit on the Top 14 table; as former champions, they must be respected with a complete performance.
For the Leinster players who toured with the Lions and will soon be pulling on the green of Ireland, the challenge of facing La Rochelle, led by a Munster legend, might just be the perfect tonic that drives them back to something resembling top form.
Which is exactly what Andy Farrell will also require if Ireland are to lift themselves high enough to compete in Paris. Anything less will result in disappointment for province and country.
If Ireland are to defeat France in Paris, Leinster must use the Champions Cup to gain peak form. La Rochelle are the perfect opposition against whom to achieve this goal. The hostility between the clubs, combined with the need to secure a home game in the round of 16, help provide the exact scenarios Leinster and Ireland require.
