Brian O’Driscoll and Rob Kearney out of Leinster clash with Scarlets

Brian O'Driscoll and Rob Kearney are certain to miss Saturday's return to Pro12 action against the Scarlets at the RDS.

The duo sustained concussion and a rib injury while on Ireland duty so Leinster head coach Matt O'Connor may turn to Dave Kearney at fullback and Luke Fitzgerald in the centre.

Darren Hudson and Brendan Macken are the incumbents from last Sunday's 21-20 victory away to Treviso.

However, Mike Ross, having been replaced in all three Test matches this month, will provide cover for Marty Moore.

“Yeah, Rossy will be on the bench,” said O’Connor.

“Rossy was injured for a lot of the build-up to the autumn series so he hasn’t done a lot of work in our environment. It is just an opportunity to keep the momentum going with him and get reintegrated with our stuff.”

Devin Toner, Jamie Heaslip and Seán O'Brien are also expected to be rested after an arduous November series. Toner played 216 minutes while Heaslip was on the field for every second of all three Test matches against Samoa, Australia and New Zealand.

“We are going to rest Dev as he has played a lot of high intensity footie so with the games we’ve got over the next month we’ve got to give Dev the opportunity to do a bit of prep moving forward.

“The bulk of the extended group will come back and play and we are going to try and give as much of them time to give us a chance against Scarlets, who are a good side. We need to put out a quality side.”

Ian Madigan is another due to return but Jimmy Gopperth's performance in Italy makes it unlikely that the Blackrock outhalf will have altered the pecking order ahead of back to back European meetings with Northampton in December.

A decision on Lote Tuqiri’s future, his three-month contract ends this weekend, remains unclear.

“Lote had that hamstring injury, he is changing codes, he is very experienced for want of a better term. It was going to take him time but he was a threat every time he touched it,” O’Connor added.