Leinster’s 31-7 victory over the Lions guarantees a URC quarter-final, the venue and the identity of their opponents are still up for grabs as they prepare for the Ospreys’ visit to Dublin next Saturday in the final match of the league stage of the tournament.
Leo Cullen confirmed there would be both changes and opportunities for players who want to stake a claim for the Champions Cup final against Bordeaux Bègles in Bilbao on Saturday week and the knock-out aspect of the URC tournament.
A changing injury profile suggests that more players could come back into the mix, but on foot of Saturday’s win, others stood tall, especially in the context of the backline, where Jimmy O’Brien, Jamie Osborne, Rieko Ioane and Ciarán Frawley all impressed.
How Connacht are proving a stark contrast to reeling Munster
Ioane started the Champions Cup semi-final win over Toulon, Osborne came on early for the injured Robbie Henshaw, but O’Brien and Frawley missed out. All advanced their cases, but Frawley’s will probably inspire the most conjecture.
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He started at fullback but moved to outhalf for the final quarter, a period in which Leinster scored three tries – Ioane, O’Brien and replacement Hugo Keenan. It coincided with the home side’s zippiest rugby, playing with good shape, tempo and accuracy to beard the Lions and take the game from 14-7 to 31-7.
Cullen recognised the impact of the bench. “Some of the bench guys added well. With Ciarán at 15, so something we wanted to see was him at 10 with Hugo on the bench. Even with Hugh Cooney, we wanted to see him at 13, we wanted to see Rieko on the wing. We’re looking at certain things all the time because we’re gearing up for knock-out games at the end of the day.
“I don’t know how many competitions where you play a final of a Champions Cup [and then] a quarter-final the week after, and you might be going from Bilbao to South Africa. We are making changes because we want to keep the group competitive. We want to see lots of different combinations. That comes at risk, of course it does.
“But it keeps the squad hungry, motivated. We want to give everyone a genuine opportunity to, say, ‘pick me’ for the knock-out games. So that’s what we’ll continue to do with one more regular-season game. We’re not going to pick the same team as we picked today. There’ll be changes. It’s a win. It’s five points, that’s what you want. The Lions don’t get anything.
[ Leinster tame the Lions to improve chances of top-two URC finishOpens in new window ]
“Maybe it did look a little bit disjointed at times but on the flip side, there’s a lot of really positive defensive sets. The Lions are a very good attacking team, score a lot of tries, so to keep them to seven points is really pleasing. When the game was at 14-7, which it was for a good chunk of time, it’s a proper arm wrestle. I thought the lads stuck at it well.”
Joshua Kenny was a late withdrawal, which meant that Andrew Osborne was plucked from a lunchtime A fixture against Ulster to start on the wing. Will Connors, who had started positively, had a little bit of a niggle before the match and came off early.
