Leinster are in the Champions Cup final once again, after an unexpectedly dominant victory over Toulouse at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday.
The hotly-anticipated semi-final brought together many of those who featured in the all-time classic between Ireland and France in the Six Nations at the same venue in February.
Saturday's game would prove to be an entirely different prospect, with Leinster running riot against a Toulouse side who simply had no answer to their attacking power in the second half. They would ultimately run out 41-22 winners in sensational style against one of the most feared sides in Europe.
Four of Leinster's five tries came with Toulouse players in the sin-bin - and that only added to a long running stat in this season's Champions Cup, which shows just how ruthless Leo Cullen's side have been in this season's tournament.
Crazy stat proves how ruthless Leinster really are
Leinster have been imperious throughout this Champions Cup campaign, taking massive wins over Gloucester, Racing 92, and Leicester en route to the semi-final with Toulouse.
Their performance in the last four match up was no different, with Leinster running in five tries against Toulouse to book their place in the final on home turf at the Aviva Stadium on May 20.
Jason Jenkins dots down and @leinsterrugby have one foot in the #HeinekenChampionsCup final 🤩 pic.twitter.com/eV3O0e0hNg
— Rugby on BT Sport (@btsportrugby) April 29, 2023
One of the most impressive facets of Saturday's win was how Leinster took advantage of indiscipline from Toulouse. Of their 41 points in Saturday's tie, 28 came during the two ten-minute periods when Toulouse players were in the sin bin. Four converted tries carried them through the yellow card periods, and showed how ruthlessly they can shift up a gear when the opposition are disadvantaged.
It's not the first time we've seen that this season, however - in fact, it's been one of the biggest strengths of Leinster's dominant form in this competition.
Across their seven games on the road to the final, Leinster have profited from several sin-bin periods, scoring a remarkable 119 points with opposition players in the bin.
The remarkable record began in their very first pool game away to Racing 92, when they once again scored four tries across two sin bin periods.
They would follow up with two 14-point tallies during sin-bin periods back-to-back against Gloucester, and repeated the feat in the last 16 against Ulster. The quarter-final saw them rack up 21 points while Leicester's Charlie Clare and Mike Brown were in the bin.
An even more impressive element of this statistic is that each score across that remarkable run was a converted try, showing the mentality from Leinster to go for the kill during sin-bin periods.
It's a trait that has stood to them on this remarkable Champions Cup run, and they now stand just one game away from a fifth title.
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