Leinster will find out this evening who they face in the Investec Champions Cup final in three weeks, but whether it's Bordeaux-Begles or Bath, Andrew Porter insists his team have "a lot of work to do" before they travel to Bilbao.
The province will return to the San Mames Stadium – the scene of their last Champions Cup title in 2018 – for this year’s decider, after a 29-25 win against Toulon at Aviva Stadium.
This will be the province’s ninth appearance in a Champions Cup final, with an even four wins and four defeats across those deciders.
It will also be the fourth time in the last five years that Leo Cullen’s side have made it to the Champions Cup showpiece, returning to the decider after a shock defeat to Northampton Saints in the semis last season.
"It’s great to kind of get that monkey off the back from last year and into a final now, so it's everything we could have hoped for out of today," Porter told RTÉ Sport.
"We've had a few years now where we've come up short, but we've put in an incredible amount of work this year, and you can see how much it means to, not just the players, but even the supporters that came here today.
"You can definitely feel the energy and the excitement in the stadium as a player. It makes such a difference, it means the world to us as players and myself as well."
The loosehead prop was player of the match on his return from injury, powerful with his carrying while he was also integral to a Leinster scrum that dominated the three-time champions.
The only blemish on his report card was a sin-bin for a high tackle late in the first half, during which Toulon scored.
It saw Leinster briefly have to play with 13 players when Harry Byrne was also yellow-carded, but by the time the pair returned Leinster were 19-11 in front after Garry Ringrose’s try.
And Porter believes his side showed real composure to manage their way through that middle period of the game.
"It was incredibly calm at half-time and I suppose we've trained for scenarios like that in the club, so we're ready for situations like that where we go down a man, maybe two men, so it was an incredible effort from the lads to hold out and even put a lot of pressure on them, given that we had two players down as well.
"It's a testament to the whole group being able to dig in and kind of sustain that pressure and dig us out of a hole," he added.
The four-point win should have been a lot more straightforward than it was; with 11 minutes to play the province appeared to be cruising when a Caelan Doris try sent them 29-11 in front, before the visitors swung for the fences, scoring twice in quick succession, which set up a nail-biting finale.
"The pressure was a small bit on them to play a bit more running rugby and we had to adapt and that kind of took us a while to adapt after them scoring twice, so that's something we'll have to work on going forward.
"But being able to hold them off, it's small margins at this level and it's great to do that," the loosehead prop continued.
Porter was one of just seven players in yesterday’s matchday squad who featured in their last final win in 2018, with Leinster losing each of their last four final appearances since then.
And the 30-year-old says it is on himself and that experienced core to help the newer generation experience becoming European champions.
"There's a few lads who've won it, but on the other side, there's lots of lads who haven't and I suppose it's on the lads who've had that experience to be able to share those experiences with the wider group who've put in so much work.
"It’s never just the matchday 23, it's the whole squad, it's the whole panel that gets us to this stage of the season in terms of preparation, in terms of the pool games, everything.
"It's the extended squad, backroom staff, it's everyone. It’s an incredibly special club, I’m incredibly lucky to be part of it, privileged to be part of it, but it's what you want to do at this level, you want to bring players along, give them that experience, but it's hard-earned.
"It's exactly where you want to be at this stage of the season, and it's incredibly hard-earned.
"It's an incredible position to be in, but we know we have a lot of work to do before the final, and get those fix-ups that we need for today and keep pushing forward," he said.
