James Ryan’s tries are rare enough that one of his brothers was among the few people who saw one coming on Saturday night.The Leinster and Ireland lock marked his 110th appearance for the province with only his fifth try as Leo Cullen’s side dismantled the Lions 59-10 at the Aviva Stadium, a response that kept alive their hopes of salvaging silverware from a season that suffered another painful Champions Cup setback in Bilbao a week earlier.Leinster scored nine tries overall in the 59-10 rout to set up Saturday’s URC semi-final with the Stormers. Ryan’s effort, the third in the list, was his first for the club since December 2022.“My brother won 275 quid off my try at the weekend,” the 28-year-old said. “Now, he said I was only 10-1 and usually I’m much higher, so that’s not bad. After the try, I’ll be 2-1.”Given Ryan’s strike rate, it is no surprise that punt wasn’t a regular occurrence. “People have stopped backing me, but I generally hear from one of my mates when they do back me because it’s always like someone’s after winning 300 or 400 quid,” he grinned. “I was getting a good bit of mileage out of that, I think that was the turning point of the game.”Leinster dominated proceedings but alarm bells went up as half-time approached when Tom Clarkson was sin-binned and Henco van Wyk scored a try for the visitors to reduce the hosts’ lead to nine points.Leo Cullen’s side needed to shut the door on any hopes of a comeback and did so through Ryan’s five-pointer in the 40th minute. How they dealt with that period when down to 14 was important, Ryan feels.“Jokes aside, I do think we navigated that fairly well when we did get that yellow card, and I think we managed it fairly well against Toulon (in the Champions Cup semi-final) where we went down to 13 men, we scored a try. “But in terms of how we prepped for it, we would do a lot of scenario-based walk-throughs during the week and a lot of that would involve yellow cards, two yellow cards, whatever, because there’s almost a yellow card in every game so it’s become a big part of the game in terms of how you manage, how you prepare for it. “Even our attack, we’d talk about sometimes just tidying up a little bit, getting a bit more round the ball when we’re down a man or two and not giving the opposition access into the game. It is very important now. There’s always cards.” Leinster's James Ryan contests a high ball against Union Bordeaux-Begles. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho [ Gordon D’Arcy: Players emerging from private schools are super athletes but lack rugby IQOpens in new window ]Bordeaux had two players sent to the bin in Bilbao in the Champions Cup final but Leinster had no answer to the attacking threat posed by the reigning champions. Less than a fortnight has passed since their latest heartbreak, but Ryan says there has been little time for self-pity.“We were off Monday after the Champions Cup final and we came in Tuesday and we just said, ‘you’ve just got to get on with it’,” said the lock. “We said, ‘The Lions aren’t going to feel sorry for you’. They’ve been over here a month almost, they had two weeks to prepare. So it’s got to get to a point where you’ve got to get over it and get past it, and move on really.”Leinster responded emphatically but Ryan cautioned against viewing that performance as evidence that the disappointment of Bilbao has already been erased.“It wasn’t the case that we were brought in on Tuesday and said ‘forget about it’,” he explained. “We reviewed the game properly, spent a day or two reviewing that, but there does come a point where you have to move on and think about what’s coming down the track.“It is something we’ll revisit at the right time, but we were a little bit off in Bilbao and it’s just about making sure that we’re at our very best now this week to hopefully put ourselves in a position to get into another final.“But yeah it’s tough, it is tough, but you’ve just got to be accountable. “There’s still lots to play for. The Lions are a good side but the Stormers are a different kettle of fish. They will fancy themselves. We know when it comes to finals you’ve got to be at your best.”The Stormers arrive with pedigree. They were URC champions in 2022, runners-up a year later and have reached every semi-final since South African teams entered the competition. Leinster suffered a sobering 35-0 defeat in Cape Town in the opening round of the season and, while all of the province’s British and Irish Lions were absent, up to 10 of those involved that day could make the match day squad this week.“It was our first game of the season, it was a bit of a wake-up call for us at the time,” Ryan acknowledged. “They’re playing some good stuff. I think for us as a forward pack it’s a huge game in terms of the set-piece. They’re a very good lineout, a very good scrum, so we’ve got to make sure we front up there.”The visitors are without influential outhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, but Ryan sees quality throughout their squad.“They have serious depth there,” he said. “They’ve appeared in every semi-final I think so far, so they have to fancy themselves.”[ ‘I was gutted’: Hugo Keenan using Champions Cup heartache to fuel Leinster’s URC bidOpens in new window ]