Leinster men can impress O'Sullivan

Celtic League Preview/Leinster v Connacht: Sometimes teams facing a challenge look back for confidence. Other sides look forward for inspiration and hope the plays they've worked through on the training paddock will come off. Leinster tomorrow will look forward, not back, when they kick-off against Connacht.

With coach Michael Cheika openly critical of the way his side crumbled in the face of a slight Glasgow challenge last time out, his mind is firmly on improvement. That should not be too difficult. It is the margin that will determine if it is enough to beat Michael Bradley's travelling Connacht side.

Again Cheika is without his front-line Ireland players, Brian O'Driscoll, Shane Horgan, Gordon D'Arcy and Malcolm O'Kelly, but the sub-plot for this match, as Ireland face into the second-last game of the Six Nation's Championship, is whether a number of players will be able to catch the eye of Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan.

With Keith Gleeson capturing his second award this season as Leinster's player of the month, and Denis Hickie becoming the sixth player to earn a 100th Leinster cap, there are definitely a few bodies wanting to say something about their form. Girvan Dempsey, now playing his best rugby, may also wonder what he has to do to get back into the Irish team. It all adds up to extra motivation.

Hickie, who has played under every Leinster coach since the amateur days when the team was run by Ciarán Callan, Paul Dean and Jim Glennon, is part of a strong backline that includes Dempsey, Kieran Lewis, Rob Kearney and captain Felipe Contepomi.

It is also worth noting Hickie's impact over the 10 years he's played for Leinster. Following Shane Byrne, Victor Costello, Reggie Corrigan, Brian O'Meara and Dempsey to his 100th cap, the winger has scored 50 tries for the province in capped games, the most by an individual in the history of the Irish provincial game.

In the pack, Cameron Jowitt returns from injury and partners Bryce Williams in the secondrow, with Gleeson forming a powerful backrow alongside Eric Miller and Jamie Heaslip.

"The team are really keen to amends for what went down in Wales two weeks ago," said Cheika during the week. "It was a combination of not being good enough in attitude. We can't afford to take games for granted. Our preparation (for that game) was as good, but we need to make sure that our attitude is spot on. We sat back against the Dragons and we've got to work harder and smarter in moving forward."

As usual for the direct talking Australian, missing international players is no reason for the rest of the team to underperform. The European Cup quarter-final against Toulouse may also be playing on his mind, and another outing like the last would seriously undermine confidence travelling to what is already a difficult task in France.

Connacht arrive on the back of beating Llanelli 33-19 in Galway last month and look at this as a chance to win successive matches in the Celtic League for the first time since November 2004. It is also an opportunity to try to begin to raise their corpse off the bottom of the league table. But, while Connacht will want to look back, they won't want to look too far back. Their only win on the road in their last dozen encounters was 19-16 at Montpellier in the European Challenge Cup last October.

While Michael Bradley had concerns during the week over the fitness of Christian Short (hamstring), Matt Lacey (groin), Stephen Knoop (calf) and Conor McPhillips (groin), Lacey and Short make it to the replacements bench while McPhilips and Knoop are out of the squad. Still, with Mark McHugh at fullback and a frontrow that caused Leinster problems at the last meeting, Connacht will be looking for something out of the match.

CELTIC LEAGUE FORMGUIDE: 2004 - March 13th (at the Sportsground): Connacht 35 Leinster 24. November 5th (at Donnybrook): Leinster 18 Connacht 9. 2005 - March 20th (at the Sportsground): Connacht 21 Leinster 26. December 3rd (at the Sportsground): Connacht 9 Leinster 21.

LEINSTER: G Dempsey; R Kearney, K Lewis, J Hepworth, D Hickie; F Contepomi (capt), G Easterby; R Corrigan, B Blaney, W Green, C Jowitt, B Williams, E Miller, K Gleeson, J Heaslip. Replacements: B Jackman, E Byrne, B Gissing, A Byrnes, B O'Riordan, J Sexton, G Brown.

CONNACHT: M McHugh; D Yapp, J Hearty, K Matthews, M Mostyn; P Warwick, C Keane; R Hogan, J Fogarty, A Clarke, D Gannon, A Farley, J Muldoon, B O'Connor, C Rigney. Replacements: J Merrigan, D McFarland, C Short, M Lacey, T Tierney, D Slemen, A Mailei.

Referee: Olan Trevor (IRFU).