The Irish provinces return to action in Europe after a rare New Year's weekend off.
For Leinster the show rolls on, Leo Cullen’s side are a perfect 11 from 11 across all competitions this season.
They top the URC table and have only missed out on bonus points in three of their domestic and European matches so far.
Off the back of Champions Cup victories over Bristol and Clermont, they take on old foes La Rochelle in Stade Marcel-Deflandre on Sunday (3.15pm) before hosting Bath at Aviva Stadium in round four of Pool 2.
"We have an unbelievable challenge in the Champions Cup then going up against La Rochelle away, which will be a great test for us," Cullen said as attention turns to the sides’ sixth meeting since 2021.
"We’ll go over there and try and give a good account of ourselves."
Ronan O’Gara’s team have also won their two group games so far, against Bath and Bristol. They are up to fifth in the Top 14 after Saturday's 22-19 win over a youthful Toulouse side.
Leinster won both a pool game away and a home knockout fixture against the 2022 and 2023 champions last season.
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Ulster, somewhat surprisingly, are second best of Irish provinces according to the league standings.
They moved to eighth following victory over Connacht but dropped down a place when Scarlets beat Dragons.
After two heavy defeats in Europe, Richie Murphy’s focus will be on consolidating their domestic progress but they must also show improvement from the losses to Toulouse (61-21) and Bordeaux (40-19).
Bottom of Pool 1, they face a trip to Leicester on Saturday evening (8pm) with Exeter visiting Belfast in the last group game.
"What we are starting to do now is build experience back into our squad.
"We’ve got a lot of young backs...we’ve got a lot of players out [injured], in some places we are missing two or three bodies.
"What I gain from it is the confidence we can put these guys back in again."
Leicester lost to Bordeaux away but picked up a home win against Sharks last time out and beat Exeter at home on Saturday in the Premiership, 28-15.
Munster, 11th in the URC following defeat to Leinster, started their Pool 3 campaign with a win over Stade Francais before losing narrowly at Castres.
They round off the pool phase away to Northampton Saints, beaten semi-finalists last season.
Mark McCall’s Sarries have beaten Bulls and Stade and are third in the Premiership having beaten Bristol 35-26 on Saturday.
Munster had numerous close-range attacks thwarted by Leinster in the 28-7 loss, and it’s an area Costello is targetting ahead of the visit of the Londoners.
"It’s a blend of both [power and technique] but going back to what players we have available at the moment, we have to be brilliant technically," he said.
"We have to be innovative. We have to be creative in terms of how we use the ball and we have to be technically excellent."
Elsewhere, Connacht are the top performers in the Challenge Cup, Pete Wilkins’ side the only team to have taken maximum points so far.
Victories over Zebre and Perpignan came in contrast to their URC form, with three losses in a row leaving them in 13th place.
Top 14 strugglers Lyon are due in Galway on Friday night but the French side are also two from two in Europe, thanks to wins over Zebre and Cardiff, Connacht’s opponents in round four.
They beat Perpignan, 17-12, at the weekend to move to tenth in the table.
"We certainly won’t be writing [the URC] off with half the games to come," Wilkins told Galway Bay FM after the 17-7 home loss to Ulster.
"We’ve dug ourselves out of holes before and progressed in the competition.
"The Challenge Cup, we’ve got off to a good start, it’s a competition we’re trying to target at the same time.
"The focus won’t change on that but we’ll certainly need some picking up from this result and this performance."
