For a man with a rocket for a left boot James Lowe says attritional kicking games are not his cup of team.
Part of Ireland's Grand Slam-winning side, Lowe is used to an all-court game and coming from a Super Rugby background in New Zealand, is well used to playing fast and open with ball in hand.
But Leinster’s most recent game, last Saturday's Heineken Champions Cup last-16 win over Ulster, was played in horrendous conditions meaning the four-time winners needed to adjust their style.
That they were able to do that, and come through to win by three scores pleased the 30-year-old Kiwi, no end.
Double Heineken Cup winners Leicester are next up for Leo Cullen’s side and visit Dublin on Friday evening (Aviva Stadium, 8pm, live on RTÉ2, RTÉ Player and RTÉ Radio 1).
They are the reigning Premiership champions and rely heavily, but not only, on a strong kicking game. In their win over Edinburgh they kicked 41 times for 1,153 metres gained, the most of any team in the Round of 16.
"You can argue that they don’t play too much rugby in the middle half of the field and it’s probably true," said Lowe, whose six successful kicks in open play yielded an average return of 60 metres.
"Their style of rugby...they are finding a way to win without taking too many risks.
"We need to understand what they are trying to do to us and hopefully turn it on its head.
"We’ve got a pretty good idea of what they are going to do and I don’t think they are going to stray too far from their good maul, their good maul [defence] and the kickers that they’ve got across the park.
"I’m not going to lie, it’s not my cup of tea but when it comes to these matches it a game of percentages and our forwards really showed up against Ulster.
"We had a rough idea that they were going to come at us physically and attack our breakdown.
"Watching the game back, we were fighting ourselves to hit rucks.
"The likes of Tadhg Furlong, James Ryan, Jack Conan, they were pushing people out of the way to make sure we hit rucks and we are going to have to step that up and double down this weekend because when you look across that Tigers forward pack, they’ve got [Tommy] Reffell, [Julian] Montoya, who are absolutely phenomenal over the ball and if we are not first into that space, then we’re probably going to lose it.
"To answer your question, I don’t enjoy the attritional side of rugby but we are going to have to get over that and I think we’ve got the means to be able to do that.
"What are they? Third in the Prem at the moment, won their last six games, they are a team full of confidence, fully deserved, we know we’ve got to cross our Ts and dot our Is to make sure we can provide an environment that they can struggle in.
"We’re looking forward to it, we’ve got a lot to play for."
The winners of tomorrow evening's game will face either Toulouse or the Sharks in the semi-finals.
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Watch Leinster v Leicester Tigers in the Heineken Champions Cup on Good Friday night on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie/Sport and the RTÉ News app or listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1
