The stench of two painful defeats hangs around the Leinster camp this week but Stuart Lancaster says the team will summon their inner 'Sumo' to freshen the place up.
Unused to losing, Leo Cullen and his side have had to deal with the magnified effects of Saturday's URC semi-final loss at the hands of Munster.
Defeat, in an interpro, to fiercest rivals Munster, at home, to exit the competition.
With a Heineken Champions Cup final (Saturday, 4.45pm) against La Rochelle looming large, how do Leinster deal with the grieving process?
"You’ve got to get from 'what’s the problem to what’s the solution' as quickly as you can," Lancaster, the senior coach who will take charge at Racing 92 next season, told RTÉ Sport.
"The first thing you do in the changing room is address the initial feelings and try to give them a sort of understanding as to what happened and why it happened but also some clarity about what’s going to come next.
"The review is important, how you construct the review as a coach, how you put the analysis together.
"Reflect on the positive parts of the game. It was an amazing game of rugby, wasn’t it. Forty-four minutes ball in play, two great teams going at it.
"It’s making sure we draw the broad lessons out of what we can do better and then applying it to this week, which is huge.
"We SUMO as well, we have the phrase SUMO: shut up and move on, and you have to put it to bed and not drag it around 'cos if you spend all your time looking backwards, you can’t see what’s in front of you."
Perhaps it’s a blessing that the final comes so soon after getting sucker-punched by Munster but around the corner is a familiar foe, one that has beaten them in Europe for the last two seasons running.
The die was cast early in the 2021 semi-final defeat but it was a try in the last play of the game in last season’s final that left Leinster feeling sick. Lancaster admits it’s a cut that hasn’t fully healed.
"It’s always there, the pain of any defeat," he said after Leinster had confirmed that Will Connors has been ruled out of the game but James Lowe is fit and ready.
"If you ask any player or coach what motivates you? Is it the fear of failure and the joy of success?
"It’s probably a combination of the two really. The feeling you get when you are in the changing room after the game and you have the satisfaction of winning a tough game that you've come out on top.
"Equally, in the back of everyone’s mind is the fear of when you haven’t done that.
"We don’t overly reference [the final last season] as a coach ‘cos you’re just filling their minds full of negative images. Last year it came down to the final play.
"You take lessons from it but you don’t dwell on it too long.
"You talk more about your evolution as a group and the confidence that should be built on the back of the quality of players we have and how hard we’ve worked this season.
"You don’t want to become obsessed with it."
