HE HAS been gradually working his way back from his most recent injury blow, but RG Snyman is now set to make his debut for Leinster against Benetton at Stadio Comunale di Monigo in Treviso this Saturday.
Thanks largely to suffering two anterior cruciate ligament injuries, South African international Snyman was restricted to just 20 appearances across four years at Munster that came to an end earlier this summer — several months after it was announced that he would be joining arch-rivals Leinster for the 2024/25 season.
He had featured against a number of current club-mates during Ireland’s recent summer tour of South Africa, but was withdrawn from the Springboks starting line-up for their Rugby Championship opener away to Australia on 10 August at the 11th hour because of a foot injury.
Snyman has subsequently gone through a rehabilitation programme at Leinster Rugby HQ and while he was close to featuring in their bonus point win over Dragons in the Aviva Stadium last Friday, his former international head coach (and current Leinster senior coach) Jacques Nienaber explained at a media briefing in UCD yesterday why they saw this weekend’s clash as the best possible opportunity to throw him into the mix.
“When we started his return to play date, if everything went 100% and according to plan we hoped that we could get him back for last weekend. From a medical point of view, they thought we must give him a little bit more time and see how he copes. He was in the majority of the training last week and he was comfortable,” Nienaber acknowledged.
“They just wanted to gradually progress his load. He is in full training this week. He trained well today. Hopefully, the medics give us the all-clear. From a coaching point of view, he needs to fulfil our needs in terms of quality of training and what he brings to the training. Then he needs to fulfil their needs in terms of the fact that he doesn’t get symptoms. Then we can pick him.”
Having accumulated a tally of 10 points from their opening two games of the campaign, Leinster sit at the summit of the United Rugby Championship table heading into this weekend’s visit to Benetton — just ahead of Cardiff on score difference.
Even allowing for the fact that a plethora of frontline internationals are yet to make their seasonal returns (though many of them are expected to feature in Treviso), Leinster have used 32 players across the opening two rounds of the URC.
Included amongst this cohort were some of those who played on the summer tour to South Africa, fringe senior players and Academy prospects such as Gus McCarthy, Charlie Tector and Aitzol King.
Although the performances delivered in their bonus point victories to date against Edinburgh and Dragons haven’t been perfect, Leinster senior coach Nienaber is pleased they have come away with a maximum return from these fixtures while also exploring the depth of their squad.
“You can look at it [using 32 players] from a negative point of view or you can look at it from a positive point of view. On one hand I think it is quite positive in terms of growth.
“You get a Charlie Tector that plays with Garry Ringrose and with Jamo [Jamison Gibson Park] and then the next week Charlie has to now get used to playing with Liamo [Liam Turner]. They have Jimmy O’Brien on their outside so they get a little bit of a different voice.
“We like to see it from a positive point of view, from that sense. If you ask me from a performance point of view, if a month ago you said ‘Listen, here’s a contract. Sign it. You’re going to concede two points to Edinburgh, but you will be 10 points after two games’, I probably would have signed on the dotted line.”
One of the interesting aspects of last Friday’s game against Dragons in the Aviva was the presence of newly-appointed Leinster captain Caelan Doris in the coaches’ box alongside Leo Cullen, Nienaber and the remainder of the province’s backroom team.
Nienaber revealed that this decision was often common practice during his time in the South African international set-up and also said he would like Doris to be the first of several Leinster players to take up a position in the coaches’ box on match day.
“I think it’s good for him [Doris]. He was the first one, but we would probably like to have more players with us. It just gives them a different idea of how we see the game and how tense we are,” Nienaber added.
“There was a tactical thing that we wanted to change at half-time and asked for his feedback. Obviously as a player you get a certain sense of where the game is going, but up there you see it a lot different. A little bit more from our view, and it’s great to get his [view]. He probably understands what the lads are feeling on the pitch. So his feeling was brilliant, obviously.”