The Tigers triumphed over London Irish at Twickenham despite being well below their best and Hipkiss knows they must find significant improvement if they are to match the feat of Toulouse by claiming a third European Cup success at the expense of Leinster at Murrayfield.

The 26-year-old Hipkiss was still a teenager when Leicester lifted the European Cup in 2001 and 2002 and has only experience of defeat following their 25-9 lost to Wasps two years ago.

He is desperately hoping to make amends for that defeat and is confident the Tigers' below-par display against London Irish will help focus their minds as they seek to complete the domestic and European double for a third time.

"It keeps us grounded," he said. "It showed us what we needed to work on this week. We understand what we need to do. We didn't execute well enough and that's an area we have to improve in.

"Often it is a little bit harder when people expect you to win. Leinster have performed well and, when it came to the test against Munster, they were fantastic.

"I think most people expect them to get the result on Saturday. They're solid pretty much throughout the team."

Leicester head coach Richard Cockerill is also banking on a major improvement against Leinster.

"We didn't play as well as we would have liked with ball in hand and our line-up and scrum was a bit sloppy," he said of the win over the Exiles.

"We've got to be better this week.

"In some ways, not playing so well has galvanised us a bit more. We've re-focused our minds quite quickly.

"Guys are a bit worried about keeping their spots and that's a good reminder for everybody. In some ways it did us a favour."

Victory for the Tigers would represent a major personal triumph for Cockerill, who after twice acting as head coach was elevated into the hotseat last month when Heyneke Meyer resigned for personal reasons.

"You don't get many opportunities to win a double," admitted the former Leicester and England hooker.

"In isolation, they're great achievements but to win them together would be enormous for everybody involved here."