Leinster may be 'dropping down' to the URC but it is important to keep the standards up says Jacques Nienaber ahead of Saturday's Round 15 clash against Ulster at the Aviva Stadium.
The South African was delighted with two champions Cup wins on the spin but knows there are no trophies in the bag yet.
"Success leads to hopefully trophies, but success also can breed complacency and complacency is a thing that you must fight. That’s probably our challenge and the thing for us is, what is in the past is in the past.
"The last two weeks in Europe is done. There’s nothing that happened in the last two weeks that has any relevance to what is going to happen this Saturday against Ulster.
"The only thing is that you take the learnings and the confidence that you build up, but to make sure that that confidence doesn’t creep over into arrogance is important.
"That oscillates, but as a group I think it’s important that we must get some accelerated learning happening now on top of the confidence. That comes through alignment and ownership of the players, taking ownership of their preparation and stuff like that.”
Moreover the South African was happy to add his voice to those specifically praising Jordie Barrett's outstanding performance against Glasgow.
What did you make of him last Friday against Glasgow?
“He was good, but I think even in his post-match interview he said ‘listen, there is a lot of things…’.
"I think he is one that will say ‘listen, there are things that I could have done better or things that I should have done differently’.
"That’s the key thing. What happened, happened, but the thing is, we must move on. We must keep growing, we must keep getting better at what we do. We must keep trying to reach our full potential.
"Your question on chasing zero or chasing a scoreline, you chase potential. What is our true potential? We want to get to that, whatever that is. I think that is the main thing, to chase our true potential and try and achieve that.
"Leinster is fortunate, there are a lot of world class players here and he’s one of them
Ulster's James Hume has suffered a back injury during the recent Investec Champions Cup defeat against Union Bordeaux Begles and is unavailable for selection against Leinster.
However there was better news concerning Cormac Izuchukwu (ankle), Werner Kok (hamstring) and Jude Postlethwaite who all passed Tuesday fitness tests and are available for selection.
Iain Henderson (hamstring), Jake Flannery (knee), Ethan McIlroy (knee), Rob Baloucoune (hamstring), Ben Carson (neck), Ben Moxham (knee), Eric O'Sullivan (knee) and Sean Reffell (calf) remain on the injured list.
Meanwhile two Leinster players Michael Milne and Lee Barron have joined Munster on loan until the end of the season and ahead of their permanent moves to the province in the summer.
Loosehead prop Milne and hooker Lee Barron arrive ahead of schedule after Jeremy Loughman and Diarmuid Barron sustained injuries against La Rochelle and Bordeaux-Begles over the past fortnight.
"Both are available for Saturday's game against Bulls," confirmed Munster boss Ian Costello.
"Neither player are eligible to play against Leinster, that's part of the loan agreement, should we meet them this season.
From Birr in County Offaly, powerful prop Milne came up through the ranks at Birr RFC and Cistercian College, Roscrea. He has scored 12 tries in 48 appearances for Leinster since making his debut as an Academy player in 2019.
He played schools rugby alongside Josh Wycherley and the duo won a Grand Slam with the Ireland U20s in 2019 along with Craig Casey and John Hodnett. The 26-year-old represented Emerging Ireland in 2022 and has twice been called up to train with the Ireland senior squad.
Former Ireland U20 international Barron has scored three tries in 23 Leinster appearances since making his debut against the Sharks in 2022. The 24-year-old has spent the past five years at Leinster having come up through the ranks at Lansdowne RFC and St Michael’s College.
Connacht will be without injured Ireland internationals Mack Hansen (ankle), Bundee Aki (heel) and Caolin Blade (ankle) for the opening leg, against Stormers, of their two game South Africa tour.
"I thought we hurt Racing in that first-half when we on script but we suffered huge disruption. we lost Finn Treacy then three minutes later we lost Josh Ioane," said assistant coach Collie Tucker in the wake of last weekend's loss to 14-man Racing
"So our whole backline had to be rejigged and then we coughed some opportunities which would have have put more daylight in the game, the scoreboard would have looked different."
Josh Ioane (hand) and Shamus Hurley-Langton (wrist) both suffered fractures in Saturday’s game against Racing, with a return-to-play timeline to be determined this week.
Denis Buckley (quad) also misses the tour due to a strain, while Finn Treacy (head) will continue the GRTP protocols following his withdrawal on Saturday."
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