{"id":432656,"date":"2026-04-13T01:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T01:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/432656\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T01:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T01:38:12","slug":"leinster-to-face-toulon-in-champions-cup-semi-final-on-may-2nd-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/432656\/","title":{"rendered":"Leinster to face Toulon in Champions Cup semi-final on May 2nd \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leinster<\/a> will host Toulon at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, May 2nd in the Champions Cup<\/a> semi-final, with a 3pm kick-off.<\/p>\n

In Sunday\u2019s last quarter-final, Bordeaux B\u00e8gles beat Toulouse 30-15 to set up a last-four tie against Bath, who saw off Northampton on Friday. Their semi-final will be played at the Stade Atlantique Bordeaux M\u00e9tropole on Sunday, May 3rd.<\/p>\n

Leinster earned a sixth successive semi-final appearance courtesy of Saturday\u2019s 43-13 win over Sale in front of 18,839 spectators at the Aviva, a good turnout considering the six-day turnaround from their Round of 16 win over Edinburgh. <\/p>\n

Toulon\u2019s victory away to Glasgow earlier on Saturday ensured Leinster would have another home semi-final rather than a trek to Edinburgh. <\/p>\n

In the Challenge Cup<\/a>, Ulster<\/a> will also have hosting duties on May 2nd, entertaining Exeter Chiefs in the first of the competition\u2019s semi-finals, with a 5.30pm kick-off. <\/p>\n

On their home semi-final, Leinster head coach Leo Cullen signalled his side will be taking nothing for granted. \u201cWe were here for a semi-final last year and we didn\u2019t manage to get the job done,\u201d he said following Saturday\u2019s win over Sale, referencing the 37-34 loss to Northampton.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a logistical point of view, it saves a bit of work anyway, but we need to make it pay if you\u2019re playing at home in a semi-final. But again, that\u2019s the reward of all the work that goes in during the pool stages and doing everything you can, battling it out for wins, they\u2019re not knockout games but that\u2019s the reward when you win four games in your pool. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t in the top two seedings, we were third seeds, but it\u2019s off the reward of winning at the end against La Rochelle here, dogging out a win away in Leicester and Bayonne, we were losing both of those games at half-time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose sort of battles are good for us as a group because they harden you up for this time of year. But URC action is on my mind now and we\u2019ll make some plans for Toulon. We definitely haven\u2019t seen as much of them. Glasgow are a team we played a ton at the tail-end of last season and obviously a few weeks ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Toulon\u2019s 21-18 win at Scotstoun, Cullen added: \u201cIt\u2019s very impressive what they\u2019ve done. We\u2019ve just gone to Glasgow ourselves and were well beaten, so we know how hard it is to go over there. They have a mix of pace, power and some big marquee players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Champions Cup semi-finals (live on Premier Sports)<\/p>\n

Leinster v Toulon, Aviva Stadium, Saturday, May 2nd, 3pm<\/p>\n

Bordeaux B\u00e8gles v Bath, Stade Atlantique Bordeaux M\u00e9tropole, Sunday, May 3rd, 3pm Irish time<\/p>\n

Challenge Cup semi-finals (live on Premier Sports)<\/p>\n

Ulster v Exeter Chiefs, Affidea Stadium, Saturday, May 2nd, 5.30pm<\/p>\n

Montpellier v Dragons, Septeo Stadium, Sunday, May 3rd, 1.30pm Irish time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leinster will host Toulon at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, May 2nd in the Champions Cup semi-final, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[56840,56839,18,19,17,12861,132,23200],"class_list":{"0":"post-432656","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-challenge-cup","9":"tag-champions-cup","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-leinster-rugby","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-ulster-rugby"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116394846038710832","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}