Garry Ringrose looks set to return for his first start since the Champions Cup win in Leicester last January and so lead Leinster into their eagerly awaited semi-final against Northampton at a sold-out Croke Park next Saturday.
The 29-year-old has played only 24 minutes on the wing as a replacement in Ireland’s Six Nations finale against Scotland since injuring his shoulder in that Welford Road game. There has been a fresh, if unspecified, injury since then but Ringrose has seemingly been given the all-clear after Leinster’s weekly injury bulletin stated: “Garry Ringrose will return to full training this week after his return from a shoulder injury.”
With co-captain James Ryan still sidelined indefinitely due to a torn bicep, as are Tommy O’Brien (hamstring) and Alex Soroka (foot), Ringrose is thus set to reassume the captaincy as well from Caelan Doris.
Otherwise, Leinster’s starting line-up could be unchanged from the emphatic quarter-final win over La Rochelle. Although Hugo Keenan has returned to training, the fullback remains a doubt due to the hip issue that forced his late withdrawal from that quarter-final.
Keenan “will be further assessed this week for a hip injury before a final decision is made on availability”, and although Jimmy O’Brien has also returned to full training after his lengthy absence due to a neck injury, the likelihood is that Ciarán Frawley will be retained at fullback.
Despite starting that game, such is Frawley’s versatility that Leinster retained a 6-2 split on the bench against La Rochelle. When Leo Cullen sounds out his assistants, Jacques Nienaber wouldn’t be alone in supporting this configuration, as forwards coach Robin McBryde would do so as well.
“Yeah, 7-1 even,” he said, laughing. “You’ve got to have players that can play in certain positions to do that and the nature of the opposition comes into that too. It is something that Jacques Nienaber used quite often with South Africa so he can put his side of things on that. I enjoy it, having that versatility and ability to get fresh forwards on.”
That Leinster can bring on a six-strong bomb squad even without Ryan underlines their squad depth, and McBryde noted that the squad taken to South Africa for their last two URC games added to that process.
“They will have learned from that experience and sometimes you just have to take that little bit of pain in order to get where you want to.”
Leinster suffered 44-12 and 42-12 defeats against the Lions and Stormers to be overtaken by Glasgow, who are four points clear, while Munster and the Bulls have moved to within one and three points in third and fourth place.
But as McBryde noted, bringing the frontline players to South Africa would have severely affected preparations for next Saturday’s semi-final.
“I think the result on Saturday will dictate where we got it right or not. Who’s to know if we could have done anything differently? Everyone understands the reasons why we chose to do what we did.
“It’s been a bit of a juggling act but they are experienced internationals, many of them are anyway. It’s a fine line between being battle-hardened and battle-weary so a lot of those players didn’t travel to South Africa.
“Those guys have had a lot of minutes in the Six Nations and you have to look at each individual case by itself. A lot of players can just turn up alongside on the day anyway.
The 37-times capped former Welsh hooker was an assistant coach on Warren Gatland’s ticket when Wales twice played at Croke Park. “In 2008 we won on the way to the Grand Slam. We played there in 2010 as well and I think we got lamped. We got things wrong in 2010.”
While Leinster will lose some of the familiarity that comes with playing in the Aviva, this should be offset by the presence of an 82,000-plus capacity crowd.
“It’s brilliant isn’t it, I’m trying to think where else it would happen, really. It’s great. The supporters will be great, they were out in South Africa as well, and the last two rounds of the Champions Cup they were there, and it’s a well-deserved day out for the supporters as well. You can’t forget that they could have a great experience as well, hopefully.”
Adding to the mental challenge for Leinster is the task of rediscovering the emotional energy and intensity so evident in their vengeful quarter-final win over La Rochelle.
“Well, we’ve got Declan Darcy working with us and he’s got experience of Croke Park,” said McBryde of the former Leitrim and Dublin Gaelic footballer who is Leinster’s ‘performance coach’. “He’s warned that it’s a double-edged sword really, you can’t allow it to become something bigger than what it is.
“But if you play well out there it gives you more energy, that’s true for whichever team is playing well on the day. We’ve got to make sure that we start well and feed off that energy. But it’s definitely somewhere that we’re looking forward to going to.
“The La Rochelle game, because of the history between the two clubs over the last few years, it was nice to get over the line. But it was just another game and it just gets us to somewhere we’ve been before and come away empty-handed, so we’ve got to make sure that we go one step further.”
