Leinster's Jack Conan says Friday night's win over the Bulls was the "perfect" preparation for this weekend's Investec Champions Cup last 16 meeting with Leicester Tigers at the Aviva Stadium.
Conan was among the try-scorers for Leo Cullen's side as they produced an impressive second half to see off the South Africans 47-14 at the RDS, solidifying their position at the top of the URC standings.
While Leinster pulled clear of the tourists in the second 40, the scoreline didn't dully reflect the contest, with a powerful Bulls side - which contained four of South Africa's World Cup winning squad - coming out on top in the open half.
"The first 40 minutes was incredibly tough," Conan, who was Player of the Match on Friday, said.
Their set-piece is very good, their maul, their scrum, they're very direct and you get challenged a lot in the contact areas, they probably won a lot of battles and we were probably just a little bit soft at times, but a huge test for us and a great result.
"It was definitely nowhere near perfect, especially that first half, and then even in the second half a lot of sloppy errors probably let them come back into it by our own mistakes."
On Saturday, the province move from the RDS to the Aviva Stadium where they host the Tigers in the Champions Cup Round of 16.
And having enjoyed a week off after Ireland's Six Nations title, Conan says their tussle with the Bulls was the ideal way to prepare themselves for knockout rugby.
"Yeah I think it's perfect. Leicester are quite similar in that way, quite pragmatic, massive set-piece team. We obviously knew what it was like after playing them a few weeks ago over there in Welford Road, so we’re under no illusions, it will definitely be a tough battle but it’s Europe, and Europe for Leinster Rugby is absolutely huge so we’re excited.
"It’s nice to have the extended run-in as well, eight-day turnaround so a nice weekend off to recover and then bounce into work on Monday and prep for a massive game for the club.
"It's difficult coming back in, especially a short week, you’re only really training twice and obviously coming back from a week off, so it’s difficult to come back in and going straight into playing 80 minutes, but it’s great," he added.
Saturday's meeting of Leinster and Leicester will be a repeat of their final pool meeting in January, which the province won 27-10 at Welford Road.
It will also be the fourth time in three seasons the sides have faced off, with the four-time champions seeing off the Premiership side in the quarter-finals in both 2022 and 2023.
And although Leicester have seen a new head coach come in this season in Australian Dan McKellar - who started his coaching career in the early 2000s at Wicklow RFC - Conan says they remain as strong as ever.
"I think they probably still play a similar style of rugby, definitely some new faces and some lads leaving, Ellis Genge gone, but we know they're a team with massive talent across the park and I’m sure they’ll be raring for Europe as well. It’s going to be a huge challenge.
"You definitely use it as maybe a blueprint of what we did last time around, but we know it's going to be unbelievably tough. And it’s great because you get to play them at home on a big pitch, which is huge, and hopefully a good day, it wasn’t the best day when we played them over there, the pitch was heavy and it’s a smaller pitch.
"Hopefully playing them at home on a bigger pitch will suit us more but we know it’s going to be a difficult challenge and they’ve a lot of players coming back over the last two weeks from England and stuff who will add a lot of value to them, and I’m sure they’ll be raring to go as well."
