With the second round of the Heineken Champions Cup upon us - former Ireland and Munster flanker Alan Quinlan believes it's going to take a special team to usurp Leinster as the the best team on the continent.
"Munster's draw in Exeter was a superb result," he told Adrian on Friday's OTB AM. "I think we were all saying that a losing bonus point would have been a good result so a draw is a great result. A win would have been fantastic result which they probably deserved to get. Look, they could have lost it in the end as well.
"I've heard a lot of people talk about, particularly the connection between Munster and Leinster in Europe and they way they just go to a different level of intensity and passion and pride - we love this competition.
"Anytime I played in it, it was a more exciting week than normal, to be fair. Player love it - it's a great competition."
"I think the depth of the provinces has brought the Irish teams back into contention in Europe and obviously helped Leinster win it last year. You go back a few years ago and there was a lot of pessimism about, with no Irish team qualifying in 2015 (for the quarter-finals).
"The system here enables the players to be fresh enough and I said to you last week, Tadhg Furlong sat out the Munster-Leinster game - an attritional physical game and you see him running around the field against Wasps last week - he was phenomenal.
"I think when it comes to Europe - Leinster are top. Munster are probably in the top three or four. The issue for them is maybe depth.
"You're obviously highlighting the success of Leinster last week and how good they are. Looking at last weekend - who will challenge Leinster? I was thinking Saracens, who go to Glasgow and you have the two Vunipola brothers get injured and they're out for a long time.
"There's no Clermont in the competition and we forget that. They've been the team that are sometimes impossible to beat over there and they're always very, very strong and they're not in it.
"So there's not many teams. Racing are a very strong squad but at the moment, it's hard to see anyone beating Leinster."
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