Biarritz The Underdogs - Lievremont

French Champions Biarritz Olympique believe they will have the clear underdog status when they meet Leinster Lions in front of a 47,000-strong Lansdowne Road crowd on Saturday.

Leinster's decision to switch the tie from their compact Donnybrook home, and instead pack out the home of Irish rugby, means a new tournament quarter-final record attendance will be well and truly set.

And Biarritz Olympique international No 8 Thomas Lià¨vremont is keen to install Leinster as clear favourites.

"This is all a bonus for us," he said. "Our objective was to get to the quarter-finals and to have a quarter-final at Lansdowne Road in front of such a huge crowd is the cherry on the cake.

"We will go there with no pressure whatsoever because we are the underdogs for this match. But we will go there to try and give a good image of Biarritz. If we let Leinster play their game, we will be dead in the water so we have to create an impression from the outset.

"The standard of Heineken Cup games is higher than the French Championship games and some of our younger players may be taken aback by the atmosphere in the mythical Lansdowne Road. But at least six of us have already played there so we know what to expect. It's up to us now to play to our best level.

"It's going to be a huge physical challenge - and our first-up defence is going to have to be first class because Leinster are capable of playing it wide if they get the space. It's going to be a big, big match."

Laurent Rodriguez, the Biarritz coach, highlighted Irish tenacity as his concern, declaring: "We just have to find out whether we will be able to keep up the intensity because we know that Irish teams don't give an inch from the first minute to the 81st. We know that if we don't go out all guns blazing from the very start, it will be all over for us.

"All our Heineken Cup matches up until now will provide us with invaluable experience for this match. It is true that we reached the quarter-finals in our first year but we would like to go through to the next stage.

"We are pleased that we have played a couple of important matches in preparation for this encounter - hopefully that will mean we will be more match fit when it comes to D-Day.

"The Heineken Cup motivates our players enormously. It is a totally different experience from the French championship - the standard of play is much higher and the context is different from games such as our game against Pau on Saturday where the players tend to know each other.

"It will almost be like playing a national team on Saturday but we have quite a few experienced players in our squad who know how to deal with this type of match and this is the kind of game we like.