Leinster and the Leicester Tigers can't stay away from each other.
It's not quite on the same level as Munster and Castres, who will meet for a record 20th time in the Champions Cup in January, but there is still more than enough water under the bridge for Leinster and the Tigers.
Tonight’s Pool 3 meeting at Mattioli Woods Welford Road will be their 16th in this competition, and sixth in the last five seasons, but for Leo Cullen, it’s an occasion that feels a bit more important that normal.
The Leinster head coach spent two seasons with the Tigers as a player, and won a Premiersh ip with them in 2007, part of an influential Irish contingent at the club in the mid-2000s, alongside Shane Jennings, Geordan Murphy and Frank Murphy.
Cullen spoke to the media on Thursday morning, shortly after naming his team for Friday’s game, and breaking the regular convention, took the lead on the conversation before a question was asked, as he spoke about his former Tigers team-mate Lewis Moody.
In October, the former England captain announced he is suffering from motor neurone disease, the muscle-wasting disease for which there is no known cure.
A few days after Moody’s announcement, a GoFundMe page was set up to assist the 47-year-old's treatment, which has raised more than €285,000, and Cullen, who played with and against Moody many times over the years, called on rugby supporters to get behind it.
"As someone who obviously played with Lewis as a former team-mate, he was an amazing team-mate," Cullen said. "Tough beyond belief."
"He is brilliant. He's such a great character. So positive as a team-mate and a smile on his face every day, even when he had his injury challenges, even when I was there at that point, jeez, 20 years ago now.
"That's the thing, the rugby community, there's so much respect, I think, between the two teams. For me personally, nothing but the highest respect for Leicester Tigers.
"And as I know, Lewis is basically a brilliant individual. So I hope everyone can support as best they can, please."
Cullen’s time playing with Moody at Leicester coincided with the Tigers being the team to beat from the English Premiership.
Between 2000 and 2009, the Tigers won five Premiership titles and were runners-up on three other occasions, while they were European champions on two occasions, reaching two other finals in that decade.
The last of those finals was in 2009, where Cullen was captaining Leinster in the decider at Murrayfield, with the Irish side 19-16 winners.
The former second row played 56 times for Leicester during that two-year spell from 2005 to 2007, and captained them on 15 occasions.
And he insists those two years "massively" shaped the rest of his playing and coaching career.
"Pat Howard, he was very creative in terms of a young head coach. And then Richard Cockerill, who was obviously starting off in his journey.
"Cockers was a hard taskmaster, I'll give him that much, so much attention to detail, but all hard work.
"There's no secret to success, is there? Preparation and hard work play a huge part in that, and that's the bit that will always be with me. It was tough going, worked hard but I absolutely loved it.
"Great camaraderie, people coming together, but there's that expectation again about whoever you represent.
"And listen, when you arrive at a game and you see the people queuing outside for two hours before to get into the ground to get their spot on the terrace, there's a positive expectation there and a positive pressure.
"I followed lots of the different individuals, stayed in touch with them and there's a big WhatsApp group of the 'Sabertooths’ - former players – that I’m still on.
"I loved it, couldn't speak highly enough of it. So did it shape me? Yeah, it shaped me in many different ways," he added.
Leinster have won each of the four recent meetings of the sides – two in Dublin and two at Welford Road – and with the province unbeaten in Champions Cup pool games for the last seven years, they will be expected to continue that winning run this evening.
The province are dealing with a hefty injury list, with Andrew Porter, Garry Ringrose, RG Snyman, Ryan Baird, Jamie Osborne and Hugo Keenan among the international talent sidelined, but they have been able to bolster their midfield with New Zealand international Rieko Ioane.
The 88-cap All Black made his debut off the bench in last week’s 45-28 win against Harlequins, but comes into the starting side this week, forming an experienced centre partnership with Robbie Henshaw.
"You’re just hoping he gets on the ball and produces in terms of what he's able to do," the Leinster coach said of Ioane, who is on a short-term deal in Dublin until the end of the season.
"So, the ball in space, he's going to be incredibly dangerous because when he moves, he's an incredible athlete.
"Ideally, you want to see him get ball in space but everyone else on the team will have to do a lot of work for that to make that happen. The forwards need to make sure you do their piece first in terms of how our half-backs control the game.
"And then we can try and get the ball into some space hopefully. It's not like you can start by just going, ‘okay, we'll try and get the ball into this guy's hands if there's no space created’.
"So we need to create space for him first and foremost."
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