Andrew Porter admits that managing different systems across three different teams has played into Leinster's unusual start to the season.
Porter was away with the British and Irish Lions during the summer and played just once for Leinster - the URC defeat to Munster in October - before joining up with the Ireland squad for the November internationals.
The 29-year-old loosehead played against both Munster and Connacht over the last nine days as Leo Cullen's side moved up a gear in preparation for Saturday's Champions Cup tie against La Rochelle.
After losing three of their first four URC games, Leinster have put together a run of seven wins of varying quality and Porter believes that their stuttering start can be partially explained by the difficulty in moving between the coaching staff and systems at three different squads, even if there's a huge crossover in playing and management personnel.
Ireland coach Andy Farrell and assistants Johnny Sexton, Simon Easterby, Andrew Goodman and John Fogarty oversaw the successful Lions tour, while Leinster had a total of 14 players in Australia.
At club level, senior coach Jacques Nienaber employs a different defensive approach and the squad's move to adapt to the South African's methods - which helped the Springboks to two World Cup wins - while dipping in and out takes a bit of getting used to.
"I mean, you could say, 'oh yeah, they have the same players and personnel in these different teams' but the systems are all different and I suppose the coaching styles are different as well," Porter told RTÉ Sport ahead of their match-up against Ronan O'Gara's side.
"I think it was tough, obviously, to have that consistency where you have the group in from the get-go and playing a lot of games from the start of the season but now I think we've been back a while now.
"Personally, I'm a back after injury as well, so it's been great to see the lads pushing the last few weeks and then to be involved myself and to, I suppose, feel that cohesion that we've built over the last few weeks.
"I don't think it's as clear-cut as what people think has happened, like the same person in and out of different teams."
Leinster are second in Pool 3 after wins over Leicester and Harlequins, while they completed a clean sweep of interprovincial victories over the Christmas and New Year.
There are signs that things are trending in the right direction as Leinster bid to put themselves in a good position for the knockouts after the Six Nations.
"I think the last few weeks have been great for gaining that momentum we need to come into big weeks like this," added the Dubliner.
"It was tough to do that at the start of the season because we had one game and then the whole group kind of dispersed into the Autumn Nations [series].
"We've definitely got that now after that last block of games, which you need coming into these big weeks that shape the back end of the season for you. We've grown massively as a team, had a lot of good combinations clicking the last few weeks.
"It's given us great momentum going into this weekend in particular."
This Saturday's referee Matthew Carley was also in charge when the Irish scrum was demolished by the Springboks in November's 24-13 defeat.
Porter - whose technique has come under scrutiny - was one of two front row forwards, alongside Paddy McCarthy, sin-binned on a harrowing night in which Ireland were penalised 10 times at the scrum.
"It's very much an area that's in the eye of the beholder, I suppose," he said. "When it comes to refereeing, it's completely a picture of what they're seeing, and an interpretation as well.
"I suppose it is hard on referees in the moment in games like that.
"You can get the right call, and the call can go against you so if I put myself in the referee's shoes, I'd say it would be one of the toughest jobs to do, especially for interpros, because you have the heat coming from the fans.
"It's one of those areas where it can be quite subjective in whoever's got a ref and what they're seeing.
"As a player, what you're looking for is consistency of decisions and of refereeing.
"I'm not saying that it's not there, but that's probably the area that players and coaches want a bit more clarity on, I suppose, is my best political answer."
Leinster scrum coach Robin McBryde was also asked if the forward suffers from a perception problem with the officials.
"I do think he's got a bad rep, to put it bluntly," said the former Wales hooker.
"Because he's so strong and so aggressive on the loose end, a lot of tight ends can get away with sidestepping to their left. So they sidestep into the scrum, which makes it very hard for the loosehead to scrummage square on him.
"If you can imagine the loosehead is on the tightest outside shoulder, he moves slightly left and all of a sudden he just pulls the loosehead down.
"That's a tactic that some tightheads have used against Andrew in the past. We've just got to make the referee aware of that because Andrew is one of the most flexible props I've worked with.
"His ability to keep his shoulders above his hips and get nice and low, from a loosehead point of view, is great.
"We've worked on certain parts of his game, certain parts of his scrummaging, to try and keep him in that nice square shape onto the tighthead, and we've seen dividends.
"I thought he had a great scrummaging performance against Munster on St Stephen's Day, but he's been great since coming back to us after the autumn. He just knuckled down and got on with it."
