Van der Flier likely to miss out on Leicester showdown

Stuart Lancaster has given the broadest of hints that the reigning World Player of the Year Josh van der Flier will probably be ruled out of Leinster’s Heineken Champions Cup quarter-final against Leicester Tigers at the Aviva Stadium next Friday (kick-off 8pm, live on RTÉ and BT Sport).

Garry Ringrose and Caelan Doris are set to return, but van der Flier was forced off in the 55th minute against Ulster with an ankle injury and, asked about his availability and that of Doris, Lancaster commented: “Caelan trained today – Josh didn’t. That probably gives you a decent indication.”

Scott Penny, who replaced van der Flier last Saturday and has taken his form to a new level since being given a long-awaited Champions Cup debut against Racing in January, looks the most obvious like-for-like alternative at openside.

Lancaster admitted they have already been considering their options.

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“It has definitely caused a conversation and with Calean coming back into the equation as well. Will Connors played and trained for the last few weeks now, Scott came off the bench, you still have Max Deegan and Rhys Ruddock. So, there are still some decent options for us.”

Although their win over Ulster didn’t provide a feast of running rugby, Leinster showed what an all-weather, all-court team they are by squeezing Ulster with an unrelenting pressure game.

Lancaster doesn’t tend to gild the lily and, given it was their first hit-out since that Racing game in January, Leinster’s senior coach said he was “pleased” with his side’s performance.

“Ideally, we’d like to play Leinster rugby but it was lashing rain so we had to win in a different way. So, our accuracy at the breakdown, our ability to create pressure on them consistently meant that, whilst we didn’t take all of our chances, we were deserved winners really.

“Set-piece was good, the accuracy of our kicking game, our ability to put pressure on them and the need to take away their strengths in terms of going after their rucks when they were setting up to box-kick the ball, win the aerial contest and the kick pressure – all the unseen work – I thought we did that well and that’s a big part of the victory.

“I was doing the review with the lads this morning and some of the stats for the forwards were outstanding in terms of dominant carries, accuracy at the breakdown, tackle success, etc.

“So, that’s the foundation of the performance. It was a really difficult game to perform in with such little preparation time in terms of the Ireland lads coming back in. To deliver it was pleasing.”

Of course, it wasn’t perfect.

“It never is,” said Lancaster, noting how “frustrating” it was that a good kick-off was undone by the concession of penalties which led to Ulster taking a 3-0 lead for almost two minutes – the only occasion Leinster have been behind in their five Champions Cup games to date. As was James Hume’s try after Jacob Stockdale regathered his own up-and-under for a second time, before Billy Burns’ perfectly-executed kick pass.

“Clearly the backfield issue that led to the crossfield kick for their try, that was poor execution of what we normally do. We made some system errors there, but credit to Billy Burns for the way he nailed it to be fair. It was a very good scanning kick by him.”

The variety of Leinster’s kicking game helped to achieve 74 per cent of the territory, and maintained the squeeze being imposed by their pack on Ulster, whether through the accuracy of Jamison Gibson-Park’s box-kicking, Ross Byrne’s restarts and tactical kicking, and those lengthy, left-footed punts by James Lowe.

“Emmet Farrell deserves great credit in terms of, A, kicking but ,B, the other side is when to kick, how to expose the opposition back-field,” said Lancaster in reference to their kicking coach.

“We do a lot of work and analysis on the opposition backfield, on making sure our backfield is secure ourselves.

“It’s such a big part of the game now. Teams are kicking more so we’ve got to be good in the backfield. We’ve got to have variety in our exit plan. We go to James’s left-foot, sometimes we box-kick, sometimes we go to the right and kick open.

“It’s keeping opposition guessing really and, when you’ve got a full-back of the quality of Freddie Steward, the last thing you want to do is keep kicking to him all the time,” admitted Lancaster of the aerially brilliant Leicester and England fullback.

Leinster beat Leicester 23-14 in last season’s quarter-finals at Welford Road, but Lancaster says the Tigers’ attacking game under interim head coach Richard Wigglesworth has evolved.

“They kicked their way to the Premiership final [last season], but I think they’ve expanded their game this season. It’s unfair to say they’re purely a kicking team because Richard Wigglesworth has come in an interim role and has nothing to lose. He’s going to leave at the end of the season and you can see the evolution of their attack.

“Handre Pollard has played a consistent run of games now, you can see the influence he’s had but their fundamentals are still strong; set-piece, kicking game, winning the aerial contest.

“That’s why they were such tricky opponents last year at Welford Road and even more so this year because they’ll be frustrated with how that game panned out.”