The visiting five-time champions boast a wealth of attacking talents, but Cullen believes that they may only unleash their usual game plan later on in the contest at the Aviva Stadium.

“[They have] a big physical pack, the forwards that they have,” he noted. “I think they’ll be very direct when they have the ball, confrontational.

“They kick the ball a fair amount. I know Toulouse’s reputation is free-flowing, offloading rugby but I think they’ll be pretty pragmatic, particularly at the start of the game.

“As the game starts to open up then they’ll start to move the ball around and you see a lot of their points come late in games.

“I think they’ll try to take us on physically, which is good because that’s what we want as well, a good physical challenge for our guys.

“You want to test yourself against the best teams out there. It’s a great challenge. They have great quality. You can’t switch off for a second with some of the players that they have, game-changing players.”

Leinster defeated Toulouse 40-17 in last season’s Heineken Champions Cup semi-finals, but Cullen is expecting a different team this time around – particularly amid the addition of England flanker Jack Willis.

"Definitely around that breakdown threat, he (Willis) is someone that’s going to change the dimension of their game slightly. It’s something you’ve always got to be aware of, what the opposition are trying to do us.

“It’s on the day [too]. Last year, they had played 100 minutes [against Munster Rugby in the quarter-finals] and travelled – there definitely is a little bit of that.

“I heard some of their comments this week about that, how they got things wrong with around some of the selections leading into that game, or that sequence of games.

“You need to be prepared to deal with whatever comes your way on any given day.”

One setback for Leinster ahead of tomorrow’s game is an injury to centre Robbie Henshaw, and Cullen explained the decision to replace him in the starting XV with Charlie Ngatai instead of Ciaran Frawley, who is on the bench.

“Robbie picked up a niggle on Monday unfortunately, in his quad. It’s nothing too major,” he explained. “Charlie trained and Ciaran actually wasn’t training that day so that fed into [the decision] a little bit as well.

“He got some good reps this week, Charlie, he trained last week as well so it’s unfortunate for Robbie, but Charlie is a big game player, plenty of experience.”

With Leinster playing at the Aviva Stadium for the third time in the knockout stage – and with the chance to play there again in the final - Cullen highlighted the emphasis that had been put on securing top seeding ahead of the pool stage.

“There’s so many moving parts,” he added. “That’s the amazing thing about this tournament. You’ve got to navigate your way through the pool stages.

“We wanted to be the top seeds, we wanted to make sure we did everything to be here, at the Aviva and now we are. We’re here, which is great and it’s a real privilege and honour to be here at this point in the tournament.”

Leinster Rugby head coach Leo Cullen is anticipating a “pragmatic” start from Stade Toulousain in tomorrow’s Heineken Champions Cup semi-final in Dublin.