HE WAS ON these shores recently to help New Zealand overcome the challenge of Ireland in their opening game of this year’s Autumn Nations Series and Leinster head coach Leo Cullen has now confirmed that Jordie Barrett is set to link up with the province’s squad later this week.
When the versatile 27-year-old signed a new contract extension with the New Zealand Rugby Union back in April, he elected to exercise an option that would allow him to play overseas for a certain period of time. Given he had previously spent 15 months as a child with his family in Oldcastle, Co. Meath, Barrett was drawn towards a move to Leinster and he subsequently agreed a deal that will keep him with the eastern province until the end of the current season.
While a knee injury saw him being withdrawn 36 minutes into their one-point defeat at the hands of France on 16 November – eight days on from lining out at inside centre in the All Blacks’ 23-13 victory over Ireland at the Aviva Stadium – Cullen revealed he doesn’t expect this to be a serious injury.
“He’s in this week. He’s making his way from wherever he is in Europe at the moment. Some final bits he had to tie off with the NZRU. His injury is not too bad. He was a little nervous, but he had a scan so that’s what we want. Get him in the door and let’s see how he looks running around.”
Even though it is highly unlikely Barrett will feature for Leinster at Kingspan Stadium on Friday night, Cullen is set to welcome back a host of names for their latest United Rugby Championship clash with interprovincial rivals Ulster. In addition to Lee Barron and John McKee – who will both be vying for a spot at hooker against Richie Murphy’s side – the experienced triumvirate of Jack Conan, Jimmy O’Brien and Jordan Larmour have also resumed full training after recovering from recent injuries.
Despite a number of Leinster’s senior squad having seen game time in the ongoing Interprovincial ‘A’ Championship, Friday will see the Blues’ first team returning to competitive action for the first time since their URC win at home to Emirates Lions on 26 October.
Whereas in previous seasons Ireland might have concluded their Autumn Nations Series campaign by this point, Andy Farrell’s international side have a 150th anniversary Test to look forward to against Australia this Saturday. This means Cullen will be without a number of key figures in Belfast on Friday (17 Leinster players have featured for Ireland thus far in November), but he is nevertheless focused on pushing forward with those that are currently at his disposal.
“It’s tight this year versus what it would have been in previous years. Listen, the 150th anniversary only happens once. We understand the importance of the tests. It’s a big game for us here. It’s a round seven game, it’s against Ulster. We’d have slightly more players in camp than them.
“Listen, we just get on with it. It’s going to be a good challenge. We’ve been waiting for this URC for a while. We’ve had two ‘A’ games, but lots of senior players have game time. Three players making their debuts. We’ll try to manage the players.”
Across six games to date in the United Rugby Championship – which has seen Leinster accumulating 29 points from a possible 30 – Cullen has used a grand total of 47 players. 21-year-old hooker Gus McCarthy has featured in five of those games and despite only making his Leinster senior debut as recently as April of this year against the Stormers, the former Blackrock College student has already made an impact within the international test arena.
Last Saturday saw McCarthy making his senior debut for Ireland in a comfortable win over Fiji at the Aviva Stadium – as part of a front-row that also included Andrew Porter and Finlay Bealham – and he rounded off an accomplished performance by grabbing a second half try.
Cullen (who recently signed a new contract that will keep him as Leinster head coach until 2027) is understandably pleased with the progress being made by McCarthy and believes he can be an inspiration to the other young hopefuls that are currently part of the Leinster set-up.
“That’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s over to the players. With Gus, even if you watch back our pre-season games, he had a good pre-season. He just takes to it really easily. Every week he was getting better and better. That’s why he started round one this season, because it was off the back of a couple of really good pre-season games,” Cullen added.
“He went well and obviously he’s kicked on since then again. Which is great to see, I thought he was excellent at the weekend. It’s what you want. Again, for all the young guys, it’s over to them when they get their opportunity. Making sure that they’re ready for it. If they go well, they’ll get picked again, but that sounds easy doesn’t it?”
Still can’t believe this signing was allowed, I cannot understand props and locks as when you go through the first 2 options it gets a bit thin on the ground, but ringrose henshaw Osborne, not even mentioning o brien and frawley, the irony is they still won’t get over the line at end of season and that will teach the irfu a well earned lesson
@Cian Halley: can* understand
@Cian Halley: why wouldn’t this signing be allowed? Each side was the same number of NiQ players.
@Cian Halley: I think they’ve simply said sod it let’s pull out all the stops to win. It’s only a 6 month contract and yes clearly for Ireland it would be better to have an Irish international playing the big games, but wouldn’t it be better overall for an Irish province to win Europe considering the amount of Irish intentionals playing there.
@chris mcdonnell: except for Munster who have had the rules broken for them and have 4 on their books.
@Ciaran Kennedy: nope, it would be better overall if Ireland win or won something of note!
@teuO6nLS: where did the 3 niq rule come out of?
@Cian Halley: All 5 of those players you mentioned will be away on international duty and you also left out Keenan, Lowe, Prendergast and possibly Larmour too so that’s our entire 1st team backline gone so this signing is actually very crucial and very shrewd. He’s more than welcome and hopefully he will add to the team and help the youngsters develop
@Ciaran Kennedy: you could say that but then the flipside is, what If they don’t get over the line,tbh its unforgivable if they don’t with that squad
@teuO6nLS: who are those 4?
@Harry O’ Callaghan: meh it’s a point but then again, as ROC regularly says in his articles, leinster have an absolute rolls Royce academy? Can’t they just whip up a fee pancakes frome there or is it perhaps not as strong as we thought?
@Cian Halley: Putting all the inexperienced academy players out against seasoned pros would be a terrible decision. You might get away with that if you had your strongest pack out but the majority of the pack will be away on international duty also.
@chris mcdonnell: Think you’ll find Ulster have one NIQ player. And a number of very average IQ players who’ll never play for Ireland which helps precisely nobody.
@teuO6nLS: Would it real kill us to pause and think before reacting to a comment? Yes the OP was having a general moan about the advantages that Leinster have, but if it was the other way round, Leinster supporters would probably feel the same way. Stoking the fire with petty digs doesn’t lead to meaningful and constructive conversation about the state of Irish rugby. Surely we can all agree that we want what is best?
@Justin Robinson: If Ulster have chosen to only use one of their NIQ spots, that is their right. The other provinces don’t have to match them though. In fact it could be argued that Leinster have made very inefficient use of their spots by signing a player for a 6 month contract and 2 others on 1 year deals.
I see Ryan Baird is back with Leinster too. Looks like POM on bench Saturday with Beirne to start at 6.
@Kenjo: Crazy.Beirne should be rested o mahony and Murray should be back with munster with the matches we have coming up.
@Papa Kilo: Beirne could definitely do with a rest but he’s an unreal engine. The bit of game time will benefit POM after playing little rugby so far this season. Think Casey will make the bench Saturday with Murray sitting out. Let’s just pray that we’ve no injuries.
@Kenjo: o mahony and Murray should be playing Saturday against the lions not needed in irish setup
@Papa Kilo: agreed Papa, overlooked that Munster were playing Saturday.
@Kenjo: saw that. So he has fallen behind Izuchukwu and C. Prendergast in pecking order potentially now.
@Michael Corkery: He just hasn’t got going this season and he was unfortunate to be injured against Argentina after only coming on.
@Papa Kilo: can be rested on provincial time and miss games for Munster. Just like the rest of the centrally contracted players do for their provinces.
@Kenjo: Or Beirne in the row, POM at 6 and Ryan & Izuchukwu on the bench. Or maybe Izzy starts and POM on the bench.
@Kenjo: I guarantee Tadhg Beirne would not agree with you. Players want to play. When RWC27 comes around, the format will include 4 knock out games. We need to be in a position to field our best team for 4 or 5 games in a row and not run out of gas. The only way players can get used to that is regular exposure to week after week top level rugby. The SA get it (mostly) in the RC every year – 6 games of quality rugby with a dose of travelling in the mix. We give ourselves down weeks in the 6N. Isn’t it no wonder there is only 1 NH world cup win.
Leinster trying to buy trophies
@Tony McGrath: it s almost as if they are recruiting players to help them win trophies
@Tony McGrath: The majority of Leinsters squad is homegrown from Dublin or Leinster. If you don’t like us signing 1 or 2 players and that’s it then why don’t you give us back all our players that we’ve given to you.
@Tony McGrath: In the 29 editions of the Champions Cup / Heineken Cup, every team has “bought” the trophy. That is if you classify recruiting 3 players from around the world to make your team better, as “buying trophies”. How can I help you to see the error of your ways?
I accidentally (it was late) watched ABs v France from a previous year thinking it was this years game last week. Anyway it was too far gone and a decent game so I just kept going, Barrett was terrible, in fact (just a self fact) if he had been wearing green that day he would have been lampooned by fans and the media, long kicks, dropped balls, missed tackles, woeful stuff… Dunno about this lad, time will tell, he may well have a few moments and URC isn’t the same as Autumn series in Paris.
Well f*#k anyway