After successive Champions Cup final defeats, there's no doubting where Leinster’s priorities lie this season.
When the province jetted off to South Africa just a few days after their Investec Champions Cup quarter-final win over La Rochelle, they did so without all but two of their starting line-up from that game, with five of their replacements also making the trip.
There was an unusual secrecy around the make-up of that touring squad.
In normal circumstances, Leinster are probably the most forthcoming of the four provinces when it comes to their squad updates, and it was fascinating to see their media department fall silent about what they were getting up to down in South Africa during their first few days on tour.
While Munster published their list of 30 players who had made their flight to Pretoria on the Monday afternoon, just as Ulster and Connacht had done earlier this season, Leinster stayed silent.
The province, it seems, had grown frustrated by the apparent mixed messaging coming from the South African sides this season about their own travelling squads. Give 'em nothing, lads.
Here at home, the future signing of Jordie Barrett and the excitement about today’s Croke Park Champions Cup semi-final drowned out any real interest in which Leinster players had boarded the plane for Johannesburg and kept the social media channels ticking over.
We didn’t find out who travelled until the province published their team news on that Friday afternoon, although most observers could have taken a reasonable guess.
The only people truly in the dark were a handful of All-Ireland League coaches who were left wondering which of their opponents’ Leinster academy crew would be available for that week’s AIL semi-finals.
The touring squad was a mix of first-team replacements and young prospects, while the usual Champions Cup starters stayed behind in Dublin to focus entirely on the Northampton Saints.
They lost both games heavily to the Lions and Stormers and returned Ireland this week having fallen to second in the URC table. Well, if we’re being accurate, some of them were home before they even fell to second place.
After the first of those defeats, Jacques Nienaber and Robin McBryde were among the coaches who returned to Dublin to get the front-liners into shape ahead of this weekend’s semi-final, while Leo Cullen stayed in Cape Town with the dirt-trackers, who were ripped apart by a Stormers team that included World Cup winners Manie Libbok, Damian Willemse and Frans Malherbe.
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It’s now been three weeks since 13 of today’s starting XV to face Northampton Saints will have played a game, having had the last two weekends free to watch this weekend’s opponents going hard at it in the Premiership against both Leicester Tigers and Harlequins, as they try to maintain their place on top of the league.
While some have consistently voiced their frustration at Leinster’s liberal squad rotation, the logistics of a cross-hemisphere tournament mean it's hard to blame them.
When you consider each of their URC tours to South Africa have come at the business end of the season, most coaches would do the same.
Competing on two fronts requires squad depth, and Leinster will argue that their position in the URC afforded them the opportunity take risks with their selections, as they look to keep their frontline stars wrapped in cotton wool.
The lethargic nature of La Rochelle’s showing at the Aviva Stadium three weeks ago, having been to Cape Town the week before, only backs up Leinster’s selections.
Forwards and scrum coach McBryde was up for media duty this week, and there was no doubting that putting a fifth star on their jersey is the greater priority for the province.
"A lot of those players would have played a high number of minutes during the Six Nations so yeah, the result on Saturday will dictate whether we got things right or not," he said of their selection strategy.
"Each individual is different. Some players, especially the big-game players, they are not interested in some of the week-in, week-out stuff.
"They want to be on the big stage, they get energised by being on the big stage.
"To them the level of opposition warrants a reaction from them and they want to be tested against the best."
McBryde (above) may have misspoke, but his reference to the "big-game players" and the "week-in, week-out stuff" was an interesting nod at the thickening line that's emerging between Leinster's A and B team.
It might not necessarily be the case though. A couple of hours after Ireland’s Rugby World Cup defeat to New Zealand, Dan Sheehan was paying tribute to the mentality of his retiring captain Johnny Sexton.
"He’s just so consistent in his messaging and the standards he sets. In training, you might be playing fecking Dragons or Zebre, and on a Monday he’ll be screaming at people to make sure standards are set," said the hooker.
The poor Dragons and Zebre caught some shrapnel in the heat of the moment, but Sexton’s influence obviously rubbed off well on Sheehan, who captained and scored a try away to the Welsh side on his return to Leinster action in November.
On the rare occasion when some of his fellow frontline internationals play in the URC outside of the big Interpros, they're consistently ruthless.
If Leinster are to lift two trophies by the end of June, the challenge might actually be keeping the week-in, week-out players motivated, rather than motivating the big-game players for the week-in, week-out.
For a lot of teams around the URC and Champions Cup, a Max Deegan or a Scott Penny would be one of the first names on a teamsheet, but the bursting stocks of back row talent at Leinster means they’ve been left to do the heavy lifting in the URC in recent seasons, with a combined four Champions Cup appearances – amounting to 119 minutes – across this season and last.
Will Connors (below), who was kept back in Dublin in preparation for this game, didn't even make the matchday 23.
Leinster’s dominance of the Irish squad compared to the other provinces goes a long way towards having such clear lines between the A team and the B team, with coaches needing to manage the toll on international players.
In the eyes of some, their ability to rest 10 or more Ireland internationals gives them an unfair advantage over the chasing pack, and while it’s certainly helped them get to the business end of the season, two trophyless campaigns – both of which saw them beaten in the Champions Cup final – has ensured nothing is being left to chance when it comes to team selection.
There's no shortage of motivation with a Champions Cup final appearance on the line, but if Leinster's frontliners do the business at Croke Park, they'll owe a large debt to those who did the heavy lifting in South Africa.
Watch Leinster v Northampton in the Investec Champions Cup semi-finals on Saturday from 4.45pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
