Leinster legend Brian O'Driscoll has put the hunt for Heineken Cup glory above a Royal invitation as Leinster look to prove their European worth.
The Ireland skipper was invited to Friday's Royal Wedding in London but has turned down the honour in favour of a Leinster training session ahead of Saturday's semi-final showdown with Toulouse.
O'Driscoll and co take on the reigning continental champs at the Aviva Stadium in one of the most hotly-anticipated clashes of the year, with the captain's run scheduled for Friday afternoon.
And while fellow British & Irish Lion Martyn Williams will be missing a Magners League match to make the event, O'Driscoll has refused to let anything distract him from his greatest goal.
"As big an honour as it was to be invited, I can't ask for team runs to be at half-six in the evening so I can go to the royal wedding at Westminster Abbey," O'Driscoll told The Guardian.
"One thing I learnt early on my career is that personal gratification takes second place. The team ethos comes first even after 12 years.
"I've met (Prince) William a handful of times and I've had a good laugh with him - he's a really nice guy and he came into our dressing room in 2009 after we won the Grand Slam. He did a really nice thing then and asked the president to come down and present us with the Six Nations trophy.
"I've chatted to him before on the Lions tour as well and met him at St Andrews when I was with the Barbarians. He's just a very nice, chatty, normal guy.
"My wife [the Irish actor Amy Huberman] is going on our behalf as we also felt there was an element of our representing Ireland as well. It's going to be an incredible thing, with two billion watching, but I'll be at home, preparing for Toulouse."
The Heineken Cup clearly still means a great deal to O'Driscoll. He may have won it once already but the star centre insists that 2009 winners medal only makes him more determined to succeed again this season.
Leinster have now reached six Heineken Cup semi-finals but have only lifted Europe's greatest prize on a single occasion. Being crowned Euro Kings once is a major achievement but Ireland's most-famous son knows repeating the feat would see Leinster really cement themselves as one of the tournament's top dogs.
"When you win one, after all those years of trying to win the holy grail of European rugby, you think, 'Thank God we've done it at least once.' But that feeling passes very quickly. You don't want to be a flash in the pan," added O'Driscoll.
"It's actually a very different mentality now. Winning it makes you hungrier for another.
"No matter how hungry you were before, and how badly you thought you needed to win it, your psyche has changed. By winning it a second time you copper-fasten the fact you're a quality side."
And while Leinster have made a habit of reaching the later stages of the Heineken Cup, O'Driscoll knows his own chances of lifting the trophy once more are running out.
O'Driscoll's imperious form may be showing no signs of decline, but the 32-year-old is aware that he cannot go on for ever.
No team can take a semi-final spot for granted as the competition gets tighter and tighter each year so O'Drsicoll knows it could be now or never as far as a second continental crown is concerned.
"As you get older the defeats become more painful. They definitely hurt more.
"Anytime you get to a semi-final you probably think, in your gut, 'This is our year.' I thought that four times previously and I was wrong on three occasions. The ones that are really hard to take happen when there's so much at stake.
"Essentially you don't know how many more chances you're going to get and that's why it hurts so much."