Victor Costello believes his Leinster team have a duty to reward their fans with a top-quality performance at Lansdowne Road tomorrow.
Leinster meet French side Perpignan in the Heineken Cup semi-final a fortnight after defeating Biarritz in the same stadium in front of 47,000 supporters.
That is a far cry from the crowds Costello experienced in his early days with Leinster at their Donnybrook home.
With this year's final also set for Lansdowne Road, the 32-year-old back row is eager to book a return trip for the expected full house tomorrow.
"We've come a long way getting a crowd like that to a Leinster game," Costello said.
"I remember playing in the European Cup in front of a couple of hundred people in the lashing rain at Donnybrook.
"What we've created in Dublin is a testament to our hard work. But with that crowd comes a hell of a lot of responsibility because you need to perform in front of that crowd as well.
"That's of paramount importance to us; we want to perform well and give them what they've come to see. We've worked hard to get to this stage and we don't want to let it slip. That's kind of been the motto for the season."
Leinster nearly let it slip against Biarritz when the French champions rallied during injury time in the quarter-final but Costello believes the late wobble can benefit Leinster.
"The end wouldn't have been what we've worked for but there's no point in dwelling on that," he said.
"We've just got to correct it for the next game. We did get through and a lot of teams in the European Cup have got to the semi- finals having scraped through games.
"We scraped past Biarritz in the end though we shouldn't have but we did and it's a matter of taking the good from that and carrying it on into the Perpignan game.
"We shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place but we did defend a lot and even more in the final seconds and that will stand us in good stead."
Costello believes Perpignan will pose some more problems for Leinster tomorrow.
"You have to tailor your training to however you're playing these days and when you get to this stage of the competition there are no chinks in anyone's armour; you just have to go out and create them," he said.
"Perpignan are a good side. Any side that can beat Munster and Gloucester has to be a good side and we have a huge hurdle to cross this weekend. But we've worked hard and will continue to work hard this week to do so.
"There is no-one at this stage with really massive flaws to their game and you have to take your chances."
PA