Scotland star looking forward to rematch with Irish rival in Champions Cup semi final

Scotland scrum half Ben White is looking forward to going head-to-head with Irish counterpart Jamison Gibson-Park as Toulon take on Leinster in the Champions Cup semi finals.

The French outfit travel to Dublin on the back of eliminating Glasgow Warriors from the competition in the last round, beating Franco Smith’s side 22-19 at Scotstoun. The three times winners are looking to reach their first final in over a decade but will be underdogs at the Aviva Stadium in Saturday’s match.

As for White, he will once again get to test himself against Leinster’s number nine having lost out the last time they shared a pitch in Scotland’s 43-21 Six Nations loss to Ireland. The 27-year old returns to the scene of that defeat and says it’s always a great opportunity to test himself against ‘top player’ like Gibson-Park.

Scotland and Ireland scrum halves meet again in Champions Cup semi finals

“Jama’s a great player,” said White. “He’s a very skilful player. It’s a great opportunity to go up against a top player like Jama.”

This Leinster side currently make up a large portion of the Irish national team so White is very familiar with how good they are, adding: “I guess one of the things that I was really impressed with was just the connection that the Irish boys have. They’ve been playing together for a long time and they’re very habitual in the way that they play.

“They’re very connected and their connection is probably one of their biggest strengths. I think obviously playing with some of those Irish boys, you got to feel the way that they hit rucks and were physical in that area. The speed of ball that it gave you off the back of that was obviously nice to play with.

“They’re a team with a lot of experience. They’re a team with experience in these stages of this competition and there’s a lot of players who’ve won things with Ireland and we know what sort of challenge it’s going to be to go to their home stadium and to take them on in their own patch.”

Toulon a “proud rugby city” says Scotland star Ben White

Regardless of the quality of their opponents, White added that his team are determined to go out and live up to the history of the club. They won this competition three times in a row between 2013 and 2015 but have yet to feature in a final since then.

“I think having joined this club two-and-a-half years ago, it’s my third season here, you’re very aware that there’s an expectation in every game that you play to win,” said White. “No matter who you play against, no matter where you play. It’s a very proud rugby city.

“It’s in its core. What the people of Toulon expect is that we’re knocking around these big matches. Once you get to these big matches, you can feel the city get behind you, the excitement grows. People come up to you all the time. It’s obviously a very cool place to be in at the minute. You feel the excitement in the place.”

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