He took the advice of his team-mates and knuckled down with pre-season training, which is beginning to bear fruit for him with Leinster.

'It was pretty annoying not to get into the World Cup squad,' Heaslip said.

'A lot of the lads who were in the squad, and a lot who weren't, just said to me 'get on with it, there's nothing you can do, get your head down and put in a good pre-season', which I did.

'I've been trying to concentrate on playing the games as they come and it's going well so far.

'But I'm always trying to improve as well and if the team is going well and you perform well, you're going to be hard to ignore.'