Tadhg Furlong stares at the mural on the wall behind him at Leinster's UCD base when asked how driven the province are to win the Champions Cup again.
It is less than three weeks since the bulk of the Blues squad were celebrating on the Aviva Stadium pitch after winning the Grand Slam. Furlong has already won Europe's ultimate prizes at club and Test level.
The mural celebrates all of winning men's and women's Leinster teams of the pro era. He wants the class of 2022/23 added to the wall this summer.
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“Sure, it’s what it’s all about," said the world class prop.
"Look behind you. Look at all the pictures on the wall. That’s what the club wants to do. We haven’t won Europe since 2018. We’ve got close lots of times.
"There’s no lack of desire there. It’s on us to go out there and try to prove that we’re good enough to win it.”
After dispatching Ulster last Saturday, Leinster are back on Lansdowne Road tomorrow night for the quarter-final against Leicester Tigers. Win that and they'll be there again for a last four clash with Toulon or the Sharks.
Ronan O'Gara's La Rochelle beat Leinster in last year's decider and could provide their final opponents again.
But Good Friday's challenge comes first and while the Blues are hot favourites to progress by beating the Tigers at this stage for the second season in a row, Furlong is cagey about it.
“As sure look, because of the team they are," the 31-year-old explained. "It was a hard game over there last year.
"I think they’re playing well, especially in the last six or seven weeks; there’s some good results in there, and the players they have.
“The players they have, the way they’re coached, what they’re about. It’s a proper European club Leicester and the lads are excited. We know it’s a big game. It’s always a big game.”
Furlong is relishing the prospect because he is not long back from a calf injury that he suffered in early December against Ulster - and that flared up during Ireland's Portugal camp ahead of the Six Nations opener in Cardiff.
He returned in time to come off the bench at Murrayfield in that tricky penultimate game before starting in the Grand Slam clinching final round clash with England.
"It's great to be a rugby player again," he declared. "I was a professional rehabber. I must go back and change my LinkedIn!
"I hurt it again over in Portugal. It's dull then because you miss the Six Nations. It just takes time to settle yourself in your head.
"So you get back, obviously missed Europe (the pool stages) for Leinster, and you're flying for Six Nations to get myself back. Then you get injured again, and you're just trying to settle yourself again.
"It's a tougher settle. But then you end up getting good work, once you get into it you're grand."
Furlong admitted: "(This Grand Slam) is a little bit different. You always felt there was an expectation to do it this time around, if that makes sense.
"It was nearly an expectation and we acknowledged it. Probably the hysteria wasn't there that there was in 2018. But it's acknowledging that we worked hard for this.
"We felt like if we played our good rugby we could achieve it. And I suppose that's as much a shift in mindset as anything."
The good news for Ireland is that with the World Cup five months away, the Wexford man feels "as fresh as paint".
He reveals that is a world away from how he was going into the last finals in Japan.
“It feels like the first time in a long time where we have a good grasp of everything," he confided. "There’s a lot of work gone in since probably the 2019 World Cup.
"I was only just talking to my physio about it, my body was in absolute bits at it.
“I had so many niggles and I had probably under-trained, because I’d gone through a lot of rugby without getting injured. And sometimes when you get injured, you get an eight-week/ten-week break, and you start hitting the gym hard.
"I do know I was battling. Every week was tough. It was tough to actually get onto the pitch. I was low on a full pre-season because I was carrying (injuries), whereas now it feels like we’re on top of a lot of stuff.
“But we’ve done a lot of work in building up a lot of the boring stuff in your body, like calves and all that, and strength levels and endurance levels.
“You’re always battling something, and you’re never quite at 100%, and I think that’s the same all over. But that’s just the way of it. You get very intolerant to other’s pain in regular life!".
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