Leinster v Benetton Treviso, RDS, 7.35. On TV: Live TG4.
Leinster begin the season with as much uncertaintyas the opening weekend of any new campaign brings.
Intent on atoning for last season’s defeat in the final to Connacht, they must do so without the retired Eoin Reddan and, after this game, the loss of defensive coach Kurt McQuilkin. They must also cope with the usual strain of international demands.
So it is that the four-time champions must attempt to hit the ground running despite missing 19 players – 13 of whom are injured with a further six due back after their summer exertions in South Africa and delayed return to action.
Yet it is a measure of Leinster’s strength in depth that they can still field a team studded with experience. Their starting XV includes nine internationals – including the fit-again duo of Rob Kearney and Cian Healy – as well as a couple more, Mike Ross and Jordi Murphy, on the bench.
Great form
“Cian’s character and mental strength are incredible. He just loves the game and he’s in great shape,” said backs coach Girvan Dempsey, adding that Kearney was “like a new player. He’s in great form, he’s training really well and he’s excited.”
There is also a first competitive start for promising 20-year-old academy outhalf Joey Carbery, with two more potential debutants in fellow academy players, loose-head Andrew Porter and centre Rory O’Loughlin. After an injury-affected couple of seasons, O’Loughlin has been impressive in pre-season and has a real outside break as well as a strong passing and offloading game.
But with a new-found emphasis on a running and passing game, it is to Carbery, tonight’s replacement outhalf Cathal Marsh and Ross Byrne, another academy player, whom Leinster need to turn to in the fall-out of Ian Madigan’s departure. After all, the likelihood is that Johnny Sexton will, like all their frontline Irish players, scarcely play half their league games.
Boys, relatively speaking, need to become men, another example being 23-year-old scrumhalf Luke McGrath, who captains the side for the second time and first at RDS. This will be a proud night for the Sandymount man, who began supporting Leinster in their Donnybrook days, and his family.
Winning margin
Leinster have won on the opening weekend only once in the last eight years. “Being away from home could be a factor,” Dempsey said.
Against that, Leinster are in something of a no-loss scenario against last season’s bottom-placed side, whom they beat 50-19 on the final weekend of last season’s regular campaign and against whom their average winning margin over all six meetings at the RDS is 39-8. They are also unbeaten in the sides’ last 11 meetings since Treviso’s sole win in their first league meeting at the Stadio di Monigo in September 2010.
In all there are eight new faces in Treviso’s line-up, five of them in the starting line-up, in Kieran Crowley’s first competitive match as their head coach.
Forecast: Leinster to win.
LEINSTER: R Kearney; Z Kirchner, G Ringrose, N Reid, F McFadden; J Carbery, L McGrath (capt); C Healy, B Byrne, M Bent, R Molony, M McCarthy, D Ryan, J van der Flier, D Leavy. Replacements: J Tracy, A Porter, M Ross, H Triggs, J Murphy, J Gibson-Park, C Marsh, R O'Loughlin.
BENETTON RUGBY: J Hayward, A Esposito, T Benvenuti, L McLean, A Buondonno; T Allan, G Bronzini; N Quaglio, O Gega, S Ferrari, M Fuser, F Paulo, F Minto, M Lazzaroni, A Zanni (Capt). Replacements: R Santamaria, A De Marchi, T Pasquali, D Budd, M Barbini, E Gori, I McKinley, D Odiete.
Referee: Ben Whitehouse (WRU).
