The four-time winners have yet to taste defeat in either the Heineken Champions Cup or BKT United Rugby Championship this season and provided the bulk of Ireland’s 2023 Six Nations Grand Slam-winning squad.

“Leinster are a world-class side, literally, with something like 30 Test capped players providing depth that is the envy of clubs all over the globe,” he said.

“They are a team who move the ball brilliantly and that comes on the back of the incredible cohesion they have as players.

“This is a group of players who have spent almost their entire lives, let alone professional careers, playing together through the Irish system, from school to Leinster and then even on the international stage for Ireland, where they dominate that squad.

“We know the challenge that is ahead of us, we know the quality of side we will come up against and that excites us; we want to play the big games, be a part of the big moments together.”

Leinster triumphed 23-14 at Leicester in last season’s quarter-finals, but this is the clubs’ first meeting in Dublin for more than a decade and their 13th overall.

“This week two years ago, Leicester Tigers were playing in the Challenge Cup knockout stages and fighting to get out of the bottom half of the Premiership,” Wigglesworth recalled. “Now, here we are, taking on a side who have been in six Champions Cup finals in the past decade and won four of them.

“Leinster are a European powerhouse and pride themselves on that. It's how they measure their seasons every year.”

Only prop Dan Cole and scrum-half Ben Youngs have played for Leicester against Leinster at the Aviva Stadium, and the latter is injured, but prop James Cronin will be passing on his expert knowledge, having faced last season’s runners-up numerous times when playing for Munster Rugby.

“They know one another so well, on and off the field, and you can see that in the way they play; there is a great cohesion in their ranks and it has produced results for Leinster with that system in place,” said the 32-year-old Irish international.

“Just look at how many Leinster guys were on the field when they won the Grand Slam this season - it is an international team.

“Everybody knows it is the be-all and end-all for Leinster, Europe is what they test themselves against.”

Leicester Tigers head coach Richard Wigglesworth has branded Leinster Rugby, his team’s Heineken Champions Cup quarter-final opponents on Friday night, “world-class” as the Gallagher Premiership club prepare to travel to Dublin.