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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Sport
Michael Scully

Leinster's quarter-final with Leicester Tigers confirmed for Good Friday

Leinster's Champions Cup quarter-final clash with Leicester Tigers will take place on Good Friday at 8pm at the Aviva Stadium.

With the quick six day turnaround, Leinster are looking at reducing the capacity to 27,000 with the upper tiers of the stadium closed, although the Blues may revise that provisional plan in the coming days.

The four-time winners are through to the last eight after beating Ulster 30-15 in very wet conditions at the Lansdowne Road ground.

READ MORE: Leinster 30-15 Ulster: The Blues book quarter-final spot with battling victory

"Happy to be through, I suppose, with lots of good stuff in terms of the intent in the performance," said head coach Leo Cullen.

"Conditions made it very difficult, you'd be worried before the game it could turn into a bit of a lottery. There are things we talk about, in terms of pressurising the opposition, which is important.

"Overall the lads managed field position well, some good variation in terms of play considering the conditions. But all it is is about getting through to the next round. Ulster are a very, very good team and they made us work in a lot of facets.

"They dug in defensively really, really well, and made life difficult for us. How am I feeling now? It's looking ahead straight away, after such a long lead into this game, we have a short lead into the next game. A great challenge ahead."

Cullen joked that their injured captain Johnny Sexton will turn salesman for the quarter-final.

"A big thanks to everyone who turned out to be at the game today. Johnny Sexton is selling tickets for the game next week now to try to get a big crowd because we’re back here next Friday and I know there’s a lot going on at this time of year but it would be amazing to have a big crowd again.

“He’s out on the streets, in the ticket office - whatever it takes, he said!".

Leinster had a big number of players coming back of Ireland's Grand Slam victory and Cullen added: "Credit to the players and coaches in the backroom team, everyone has worked hard to put a plan together to deliver a cohesive performance.

"A huge amount of effort has gone in, and hats off to the backroom team and players, who applied themselves well on a consistent basis.

"There were a lot of selections this week for guys who were unlucky to miss out of the 23. We had a good chunk of guys who played here a couple of weeks ago in that England game.

"Last Friday we played in the RDS with new faces, so it's trying to put it all together. They've applied themselves as a group well, it's not just the 23, it's the guys preparing the team. We'll need it again this week, Leicester are a very gritty team, and we'll need to make sure we're at our best."

Leinster will have Garry Ringrose and Caelan Doris back available for the clash, although Josh van der Flier could be a doubt after twisting his ankle early in the second half.

"It's going to take a big squad effort to keep abreast of this tournament, it's such an unusual sequence of games," said Cullen. "It's good to see the guys push each other on."

Leinster’s James Ryan, Ross Moloney, Tadhg Furling and Dan Sheehan celebrate winning a scrum (©INPHO/Dan Sheridan)

The Tigers saw off Edinburgh on Friday night to make the quarter-finals and Cullen added: "I watched the game last night against Edinburgh, we played them at Welford Road at this stage last season, and they've a tonne of experience across their team.

"You see someone like Jasper Wiese made a real impact, their halfbacks, whoever plays, if it's Van Portvliet or Ben Youngs, Pollard at out-half.

"They'll fancy their chances of coming here, and for us it's trying to recover well now, put a plan together and try and do as much as we can with a limited amount of time we have next week, and hopefully we turn up here next week and get a big crowd again."

Meanwhile, Ulster boss Dan McFarland expressed disappointed at his side's defeat.

"It's an Interpro, it's Europe, and we're out now," he said. "The lads put so much into that, and physically they put their bodies on the line today, but we came up against a great side. I thought they showed their class in difficult conditions today.

"We talked at half time about the physicality, forcing errors from them, we needed to force errors from them to get a foothold in the game, but we also talked about discipline, and making sure that we didn't give penalties away to give them access, because they're so clinical.

"We didn't manage to do that in the second half, we still gave penalties away, whether it be at the set piece or around the offside line.

"Leinster are so good that if you give them access like that, they're going to score points, and sure enough they did.

"I think if we hadn't given the yellow cards away...I thought both were harsh to be honest.

"We've been getting better as the season goes on, we played a top Leinster team there, extremely competitive.

"We know what we're good at, it's clear today some of the things we can get right going forward, because we're going to be facing great teams going forward. We'll take a breath and look forward to that."

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