Leinster’s James Ryan hits out at EPCR ticket prices as Antoine Dupont promises ‘fitter, fresher’ Toulouse

Tickets initially went on sale at a range of prices, but only those priced €75 were available this week and that has been a source of frustration for Leinster.

Earlier this week, head coach Leo Cullen exhorted fans to come and support the team aiming to reach a home final in three weeks.

And the frustration over ticket prices has clearly seeped into the dressing-room with captain Ryan lamenting that it won’t be a full-house.

"It's a European Cup semi-final. It's exciting, definitely,” Ryan said.

"Being able to play in the Aviva in Dublin is very special for us. We can't wait, it's going to be 40,000-plus. I'm not sure it'll be quite a sellout. It probably would be if the EPCR lowered some of the ticket prices a bit.

“The support we get is incredible for us, a huge point of difference for us. We're going to need it tomorrow, and we can't wait.”

The big news from the Leinster camp this morning is the absence of Robbie Henshaw. Leo Cullen explained that the centre had picked up an injury in training.

Charlie Ngatai comes into the team, with Jordan Larmour coming on to the right wing as Jimmy O’Brien shifts to the left to cover James Lowe’s absence and Josh van der Flier comes back into the back-row as Ryan Baird is on the bench.

"Robbie picked up a niggle on Monday, unfortunately, with his quad. It’s nothing too major now. Charlie [Ngatai[ trained, Ciaran [Frawley] wasn’t actually training that day, so that fed into a little bit as well,” he said.

“Charlie got some good reps this week and trained last week as well. It’s unfortunate for Robbie, but Charlie is a big game player with plenty of experience, and for a player coming back into it. That’s an easy way to do it, and Ciarán gives us great versatility off the bench as well.

“So, he’ll definitely feature at some point, hopefully, and I think that’s a good combination for the group. Charlie brings good physicality and plenty of experience playing against French teams over the years. We’re lucky that we’ve got that quality there. Unfortunate for Robbie obviously.

“We’ve so much respect for Toulouse as a team and as a club, and we know they’ll be disappointed off the back of last season in particular, so it should be a great battle.”

Leinster beat Toulouse in last year’s semi-final, but Cullen is expecting a fiercer challenge from the five-time winners.

“They have a big physical pack of forwards, so I think they’ll be very direct when they have the ball,” he said.

“I think they’ll be pretty direct and confrontational. They kick the ball a fair amount. I know Toulouse’s reputation is sort of free-flowing, offloading rugby, but I think they’ll be pretty pragmatic, particularly at the start of the game.

“As the game starts to open up, then they start to move the ball around, and you see a lot of their points come late in games. So I think they’ll try to take us on physically, which is good because that’s what we want as well. A good physical challenge for our guys and that’s what you want to do. You want to test yourselves against the best teams out there.

“It’s a brilliant challenge, isn’t it? Plenty of quality, you can’t switch off for a second with some of the players that they have, game-changing players and all the things we’ve talked about over the last week, and even before that as well.”

Toulouse skipper Antoine Dupont said his side are better set than they were a year ago when they came off a penalty shootout win over Munster or the 2019 semi-final loss when they were early in their development.

“The context was different and the environment was different,” he said.

"We had a young squad [in 2019], not really experienced, and against a team with a lot of experienced players playing together for a long time. Last year, physically, we were tired because of extra time when we played Munster, so we were a bit tired.

“It was a tiring season for us and we tried to pull out all the stops this season to get a turnover of players.

"So we managed to score points and get a turnover of players, so we are fresher, fitter and physically fit and we drew lessons from that defeat and hope we don’t repeat our errors.

“They will host this match, and if they win, they will play the final in their own stadium, so we will make sure that we play a good match and we hope that we will reach the final.”