A number of recent on-field events have brought more attention to discipline around the tackle and breakdown and Leinster are working hard to make sure they are on top of their brief.
High tackles in Ireland's Six Nations games against Italy and England, and in two of Leinster and Connacht’s recent meetings have seen red and yellow cards dished out, while Dan Leavy was forced to call time on his career last week after failing to fully recover from the knee injury he suffered when a player came in from the side of a ruck.
Former Munster and Ireland back row Denis Leamy is the contact skills coach at Leinster and he’s a busy man.
"We do a good bit of technique work, especially with Denis Leamy. He does great work with us," explains flanker Josh van der Flier.
"We try not to leave anything up to the ref, we try to be textbook perfect in terms of showing him good pictures, and try and be clean in that way.
"That thing you practice as a schoolboy or playing in clubs is like trying to hit low, get under and drive up.
"But players are quite quick into the space and going for poaches, you get some players who tackle and barge, you get some players who come in late for a poach.
"It’s never a clean perfect picture, that’s what makes it quite difficult.
"My focus is to get over the ball as fast as possible.
"The perfect thing, from my perspective, is not having to hit anyone, not having to clear out the ruck at all because the moment the ball-carrier falls to ground I’m straight over the ball and they don’t even have a chance to compete.
"You rarely get perfect textbook pictures, which are the same as when you practice hitting the pad in a training session.
"That’s why it can sometimes look a bit messy at the ruck but certainly you want to do it as textbook as possible, but it doesn’t always work out like that."
Leinster have had two men yellow-carded in their last two games against Friday's opponents Connacht, with Jamison Gibson-Park considered lucky by some not to have been sent off for a high tackle on Kieran Marmion, which bloodied the nose of the Connacht scrum-half in the first leg.
Asked about improving discipline at the tackle, attack and backs coach Felipe Contepomi agreed that it’s an area that needs extra focus.
"The way it’s being refereed, it’s not even ill-discipline," he said.
"We have to have good gestures, we have to have good technique, we have to lower our tackle because if it’s a head contact, even with no intent, if it’s unlucky or whatever, if it’s reckless it’s a red card. Full stop.
"We need to be aware of that and we are working really hard, trying to lower that contact, and have good technique in our defence.
"It’s not ill-discipline, it’s part of the game and part of how it’s refereed nowadays and you have to adapt to that.
"Denis Leamy, he spends a hell of a lot of time in the contact area and working on technique and good body position in attack and defence, also on the breakdown."
Leinster will go into the second leg of their Heineken Champions Cup tie with a five-point cushion from the first game and are 1-25 on to progress to a meeting with either Clermont or Leicester, who won the first match 29-10 in France.
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Van der Flier, meanwhile, says the team will take little comfort from the margin of their win in a tie that is to be decided on aggregate score.
"There is a five-point advantage, it's knock out rugby, it doesn’t matter if you score one try or five as long as you get the win," said the 28-year Ireland international.
"I’m sure if there’s opportunities to take points at any stage we’ll gladly take them.
"The start is hugely important. If they start the way they did last week [with an early try] then it’s all level after [three] minutes.
"Five points is not much of a cushion. We’re starting from zero and working from there."
Follow Leinster v Connacht (Friday 5.30pm), Munster v Exeter (Saturday 3pm) Ulster v Toulouse (Saturday 8pm) via our live blogs on rte.ie/sport and on the RTÉ News App. Listen to live radio coverage of Leinster v Connacht on RTÉ 2fm.
