Seán O’Brien will miss Leinster’s pivotal Champions Cup match against Montpellier at the RDS on Friday night (7.45) with a calf issue, albeit not a serious one, as he is expected to be available for the final pool game against Castres Olympique.
Leinster coach Leo Cullen confirmed O'Brien's injury, saying: "He just had a bit of tightness in his calf this week so we didn't take any risks with him. He should be available next week."
His place in the team will be taken by Jack Conan, who should have little problem in switching from his preferred role of number eight. Conan’s ball-carrying prowess will be important against a physically imposing Montpellier side.
Dan Leavy has shrugged off a rolled ankle early in the week to make the replacements, where he will be joined by a fit again Rob Kearney. Cullen explained the decision behind opting to leave the Ireland fullback on the bench initially.
He smiled when asked whether the form of late of captain Isa Nacewa, Adam Byrne and Rory O’Loughlin, who will form the back three against the French side, made their credentials impossible to ignore. Kearney also only resumed full training this week.
Cullen said: “A little bit of both, we just wanted to see how he came through the week a little bit. Just to give us that certainty earlier in the week we went with that combination. They’ve all been going well so I thought they deserved the start as well.”
Secondrow Ross Molony has fought his way onto the bench. In the absence of the injured Seán Cronin, Cullen pointed out that he would have a more definitive prognosis on the hooker’s hamstring injury next week – James Tracy wears the number two jersey with Richardt Strauss on the bench.
Montpellier have announced a strong team, loaded with southern hemisphere and Georgian internationals; in some respects it is a case of ‘find the Frenchman’.
Cullen offered this appraisal of physically imposing visitors. “I think they’re big. They’re very, very big. They’re a team coached by Jake White so there’s definitely a certain style in the way they want to play the game. They’ve a very big forward pack, confrontational, very good maul, will go very hard at the ruck and will have a very strong kicking game.
“Obviously with (scrumhalf) Nic White in there who he (Jake White) would have coached with the Brumbies, Frans Steyn as well from his time with South Africa (they have halfbacks who can control the game). They’ve got a few big backs as well, (Nemani) Nadolo on the wing in particular.
“But yeah they’ve a lot of threats across the board. They’ve assembled a very strong squad; they’re pretty well resourced and backed as a club. They certainly run a very different model to ourselves. It’s a struggle to find the French players.
“Obviously I’ve a Fijian sitting beside me here (Nacewa) but we’ve a very different model. It’s definitely a clash of styles, Leinster against Montpellier but we’ve a lot of respect for them and we found the going tough when we played in France.
“I thought the guys battled back well, what was it, 22-6? We’d Rob Kearney in the bin as well so at that stage it wasn’t looking fantastic for us but I thought we finished out the game well.
“We have been asking a lot of questions as to why we got ourselves into that situation. Montpellier, to their credit, they are a dangerous team and put us under pressure at a lot of stages so we need to make sure we handle some of those threats a lot better.”
One of the primary concerns will be stopping the gargantuan Fijian Nadolo who scored a brace of tries in the first match between the teams. Cullen admitted that they would be looking to deny the wing space, something they’d worked hard on in training.
There are less than 1,000 tickets left for Friday’s game and both Cullen and Nacewa expressed the hope that the team would be roared on by a full house.
LEINSTER (v Montpellier, RDS, Friday, 7.45pm): Isa Nacewa (capt); Adam Byrne, Garry Ringrose, Robbie Henshaw, Rory O'Loughlin; Johnny Sexton, Luke McGrath; Jack McGrath, James Tracy, Tadhg Furlong; Devin Toner, Hayden Triggs; Jack Conan, Josh van der Flier, Jamie Heaslip.
Replacements: Richardt Strauss, Cian Healy, Michael Bent, Ross Molony, Dan Leavy, Jamison Gibson-Park, Ross Byrne, Rob Kearney.
MONTPELLIER: J Michel; T Nagusa, V Martin, J Tomane, N Nadolo; F Steyn, N White; M Nariasvili, S Mamukasvili, J Du Plessis; P Willemstad, K Mikautadze; F Quedraogo, A Quera (capt), P Spies.
Replacements: C Geli, Y Watremez, D Kubriashvili, A Battut, K Galletier, T O'L:wary, H Immelmann, J Mogg.
