Toulouse target a home quarter-final

No-one knows more about what it takes to win the Heineken Cup than treble champions Toulouse - including the priceless value of a home quarter-final.

The French giants go into their 90th Heineken Cup match, against Leinster at the RDS on Saturday, with a five-point advantage at the top of Pool 6 but wary of the threat Brian O'Driscoll and his team pose to their last eight hopes.

While All Blacks scrum half Byron Kelleher is relatively new to the tournament after joining Toulouse following the 2007 Rugby World Cup last October, he is well aware of the advantages of being home at the start of the knock-out stages in April.

"We want to finish at the top of the table," he said. "I know that after the back-to-back matches Leinster are going to have a really tough job to qualify, but we are under no illusions.

"They are a tough team and they like to play our style of rugby. They are going to be a big challenge and they will want to beat us at home.

"Toulouse like to throw the ball around and it's great for me coming from the All Blacks to this set-up but Leinster are capable of beating us at our own game and we need to stay very level-headed for this match.

"We are trying to build our confidence within the squad and this game means much more than simply getting the points in the bag.

"It is a big deal for a French team to pick up points away from home and the impact of getting the bonus point at Welford Road, despite the conditions, gave us a real boost coming into the return leg in Toulouse and we are looking to build on that throughout the season.

"And it was very important for us to win at home against Leicester. The weather at Welford Road made it tough for us to play the sort of game we like to and, although we adapted well, they coped with it better than we did.

"We learned some lessons that day and took them into the return leg. We decided to get up in their faces a lot more than we would normally do and it paid off. We are trying new things and looking far more at changing our game plan totally in order to meet the opposition's strengths.

"Having such a quality squad is allowing us to put out whatever team is needed and it's a great position to be in - and obviously we've been very lucky with injuries so far this season which has also helped.

"But this is a really long season and we want a solid platform we can work off. In order to do that we need the depth in the squad so we peak for the big matches. We know that players are going to be rotated but we have such a quality of squad that this won't mean that the team will be any weaker.

"Squad rotation - when it happens as a one-off - can produce very poor quality teams but this is a conscious game plan for Toulouse and we have worked very hard to ensure that we are able to field strong teams for every game this season.

"It's not the traditional way of thinking for a French side to look at being competitive in every game they play but by moving players in and out of the squad, we are looking to get that level of continuity at home and away."