It says a lot about Will Connors' skillset that the flanker's only previous Investec Champions Cup appearance this season also came against La Rochelle.
The 28-year-old was given the nod to start over Josh van der Flier in the December meeting of the sides in their pool game at Stade Marcel Deflandre, and Leo Cullen has decided to follow that blueprint again for tomorrow's clash at the Aviva Stadium (5.30pm, live on RTÉ).
The Leinster coach can often be coy when asked for the specific reasons behind team selections, but when pressed about what what makes the Kildare man a perfect fit for going up against the defending champions, Cullen made a clear case.
"I think he's the best chop tackler in the game, that I've come across," he said.
Remarkably, this is just a third ever Champions Cup appearance for the Ireland international, whose career was been chequered by injury since 2021.
With La Rochelle boasting big ball-carriers like Will Skelton, Jonathan Danty and Greg Alldritt to name just three, Cullen believes his ability to stop the French side's momentum will be vital.
"In terms of getting guys on their backs, and they've got some big guys, so getting them on their backs and make them have to work, I think he delivers that in spades," he added.
"I thought he did a good job in the pool stage [game], and we'll see how he goes tomorrow.
"But he's a great guy in the squad, lads love playing with him, and Josh [van der Flier] will give good impact as well, like he did over there, and we'll need that over the course of the game.
"We've got some good quality coming off the bench so those guys need to be able to deliver impact off the bench and it allows the starters to go hard and deliver, they're not sort of conserving any energy, they're giving it all."
The other major selection call from the Leinster coach sees Jason Jenkins come in for Ross Molony, partnering Joe McCarthy in a heavy second row. With James Ryan also injured, it means Ryan Baird will be calling lineouts from the back row.
And although Cullen admits it was a tight call between Jenkins and Molony, he says the extra weight of the South African tipped the scales.
"Ross delivers a real sense of clarity, Jason is a big man, again going back to that just big, physical piece, just hopefully Jason will deliver on that physical part.
"Scrum-wise, we want to try to go after La Rochelle, they've a very young 20-year-old loosehead [Louis Penverne] there, so it's making sure we're painting dominant pictures around the set piece, I think that's important.
"Lads get a lot of confidence from Jason and from Will.
"Again, it's going to be an intriguing battle all across the park, there are many sub-plots there, isn't there, as there always are in these big games. So yeah, a good challenge," Cullen (below) added.
While Leinster won the previous meeting of the sides in December, La Rochelle lead the head-to-head 3-1, having defeated the province in the last two finals, as well as the 2021 semi-final.
Both finals in 2022 and 2023 saw Ronan O'Gara's side outlast Leinster to score game-winning tries in the final 10 minutes, and the Leinster coach is hopeful his 6:2 split on the bench, which includes Ireland internationals Rónan Kelleher and Jack Conan, as well as Molony and Van der Flier, will give his side some extra power down the stretch.
"Yeah, it comes down to those very tight moments in the end, obviously one where we're in a sequence defending them, if you think back to Marseille, and we had opportunities to probably play down the other end of the field," he said.
"The key thing is to keep playing, isn't it, in some of these finals where we've had leads.
"It's La Rochelle in this case but if you sit back, any good team is going to fight back in these big games so it's making sure we keep playing our game is probably the big thing and we did that probably in moments in the game, in the pool stages, but because the conditions were so bad in the round one pool game, it was more of a kicking, tactical type of an arm wrestle of a game, wasn't it?
"In terms of learning lessons from those two finals, yeah, you need to have the faith in bringing those guys on as well to do the job that we've set out for them during the course of the week."
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Watch Leinster v La Rochelle in the Investec Champions Cup quarter-finals on Saturday from 5pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player.
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