James Lowe will make a timely return for Leinster in Saturday’s Champions Cup final at the Aviva Stadium (kick-off 4.45pm – live on RTÉ2 and BT Sport 2) as Leo Cullen makes 13 changes to the starting XV from last week’s loss to Munster.
Jimmy O’Brien, who reverts to the right wing, and Robbie Henshaw, who made a strong comeback last week and moves from outside to inside centre, are the only two players retained from last week’s URC semi-final defeat.
The fit-again duo of Lowe and Henshaw are the only two changes from the starting XV in the 41-22 Champions Cup semi-final win over Toulouse, with Charles Ngatai dropping to the bench ahead of Ciarán Frawley, and Jordan Larmour also not in the 23.
Lowe has been sidelined since the quarter-final win over Leicester six weeks ago with a groin injury and his return is a welcome fillip for this season-defining game given the importance of his left-footed kicking game, hard carrying, offloading and finishing – witness his strike rate of 50 tries in 71 games.
Rónan Kelleher is also on the bench, having made his first appearance since the win over Racing 92 last January a week ago.
Tadhg Furlong sat out the captain’s run at the Aviva and wore a protective sock for what may have been a calf strain of some kind, but Cullen insisted the tighthead was fine.
“He’s okay, yeah. There were a few guys who didn’t train today, and that’s the way it would normally be with captain’s runs. Some guys step out. James is the captain, so he runs it. Just the normal course of event. He’s good to go.”
La Rochelle have been strengthened by the return of Jonathan Danty, who missed their 47-28 semi-final victory over Exeter three weeks ago.
[Leinster v La Rochelle: Kick-off time, TV channel and latest team news ahead of Champions Cup final]
Ronan O’Gara’s only other change from that starting line-up sees Paul Boudehent preferred at blindside to the former Connacht lock cum flanker Ultan Dillane who, like Jules Favre, moves to the bench.
La Rochelle have seven changes in their starting line-up from last year’s final when beating Leinster 24-21 in Marseille, including new signings UJ Seuteni and Antoine Hastoy as well as Tawera Kerr-Barlow, who missed the game through injury. Reda Wardi, Romain Sazy and Levani Botia, who were replacements in Marseille, all start, as does Boudehent.
By contrast, the only changes to the Leinster starting XV from a year ago see Ross Byrne in place of the injured Johnny Sexton and Dan Sheehan start ahead of Kelleher, albeit Jason Jenkins is a notable addition on the bench to counteract the La Rochelle power game as well as the athleticism of Ryan Baird.
“If you look back at that game last year, we’re 18-10 ahead and there’s a bizarre bounce and the ball comes back into play; for the first 60 minutes we’re dealing pretty well but it’s about how we manage that last 15 minutes,” said Cullen.
“If we think back to that final last year, the guys are pretty comfortable about how they managed it for the majority of the game. it was just that last period and there’s probably some decisions that we made there, we reviewed that in lots of different forms in the year since. Our group is growing all the time.
“It’s definitely a different model, we generally speaking have young guys come through the club and to get them to 50, 100, 150 games they have to get picked that many times for Leinster. It’s not a quick process to build a really experienced group.
“But I think we have a very experienced group now and a lot of that group have learnt a lot since last year.
“A lot of them went away with Ireland during the summer and won a series in New Zealand. A lot of players in our 23 tomorrow featured in that, they’ve done some great things with Ireland since as well. You’re looking for all of that experience to come to the fore now of playing big games.
“It’s accumulating experience all the time, because that’s the way our model works. We’re not going out to the marketplace like a Top 14 team would do. It’s a slower process for us, bringing guys through but as I said, I think there’s a group here now that are ready to do business on the biggest day. So we’ll see how we go tomorrow.”
While La Rochelle also beat Leinster in the semi-finals two seasons ago behind closed doors in their Stade Deflandre, O’Gara rejected the notion that his team have a magic formula against Leinster.
“I don’t look upon it like that, genuinely. Two games over whatever, a 60-game period is pretty irrelevant to me.
“We do have fun but we’ve high standards. We have ambition to do something special in these players’ lives. I’m not really interested in having a job. I love what I do, we love what we do, we get a chance tomorrow to play for each other in the final of a European Cup. It doesn’t get any better, doesn’t get any bigger, we’re in the home of Leinster, it’s a really daunting task but a great challenge, but one we want to succeed in.”
LEINSTER: Hugo Keenan; Jimmy O’Brien, Garry Ringrose, Robbie Henshaw, James Lowe; Ross Byrne, Jamison Gibson-Park; Andrew Porter, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Furlong; Ross Molony, James Ryan (capt); Caelan Doris, Josh van der Flier, Jack Conan.
Replacements: Rónan Kelleher, Cian Healy, Michael Ala’alatoa, Jason Jenkins, Ryan Baird, Luke McGrath, Ciarán Frawley, Charlie Ngatai.
LA ROCHELLE: B Dulin; D Leyds, UJ Seuteni, J Danty, R Rhule; A Hastoy, T Kerr-Barlow; R Wardi, P Bourgarit, U Atonio; R Sazy, W Skelton; P Boudehent, L Botia, G Alldritt (capt).
Replacements: Q Lespiaucq Brettes, J Sclavi, G Henri Colombe, T Lavault, R Bourdeau, U Dillane, T Berjon, J Favre.
Referee: Jaco Peyper (SARU)
