LEINSTER BOSS LEO Cullen said Jack Conan and Garry Ringrose would travel to South Africa as part of the squad to take on the Bulls in the URC semi-finals this Saturday.
Ringrose has been sidelined for months with a troublesome shoulder injury and though Leinser said the Ireland centre would be available for last weekend’s quarter-final win over Ulster, he wasn’t involved.
Back row Conan also missed the Ulster game after being withdrawn from the win over Connacht two weekends ago, but he looks set for his return against the Bulls.
“Garry and Jack should be good to go,” said Cullen on Saturday evening.
“The plan is for them to travel.”
The Leinster boss confirmed that Hugo Keenan would not be returning to the fold with his province after playing for Ireland 7s in the Rugby Europe Championship in Croatia last weekend.
However, Cullen stopped short of ruling Keenan out of involvement in a possible URC final if Leinster reach it.
“No, not for the semi-final,” said Cullen when asked if Keenan would feature again.
“One game at a time. He won’t be playing in South Africa.”
The Leinster boss underlined that it had been a tough decision for Keenan to leave his province at this stage of the season and chase his Olympic dream with Ireland 7s.
“You have to understand for all our fans, the group as well, you want a top-end player like Hugo, he has been an unbelievable servant for Leinster and for Ireland, he is still a relatively young man,” said Cullen.
“He gets the opportunity to represent Ireland and to win an Olympic medal. If you look through his lens, it is a difficult choice for him to make. He felt bad, particularly off the back of losing the Champions Cup final. He doesn’t like leaving the group.
“But again there is an opportunity there and it’s one of those tough choices. Everyone has to support him in making a tough choice. They are two amazing opportunities really and you just want to support players because again you want to give them opportunities so in the future when we are playing a match like the Bulls, it won’t be in an Olympic cycle.
“You hope when he is up for contract next and has the opportunity to go somewhere else, he goes, ‘I want to stay here because of the loyalty and support that everyone has given me.’”
Leinster might not have Keenan but their squad still includes more than enough quality to go to Pretoria and win.
Despite being away from home, Leinster are the four-point favourites early this week, not that Cullen concerns himself with such framing.
“It’s just about embracing the challenge now, making sure we are imposing our game on the opposition,” said Cullen.
“We played the Bulls in Round 13 when they had a fully loaded group. We were coming off the back of the Six Nations and we had a mix of some guys coming back from the Six Nations, we had some guys who played the previous week against Zebre.
“We are hugely excited, you don’t want it to end really. You see Ross Molony scoring a try there, he is obviously going to be moving on to a different challenge [with Bath] at the end of this season. Michael Ala’alatoa [who is joining Clermont], you can just see the intent he has in all aspects of his game. That is just mentioning two players.
“For the group, it is about embracing the challenge. It will be hard but it’s brilliant and we want to get excited by it. It’s different but hugely exciting nonetheless.”
Great save by Kelleher near the end. Comfortable afternoon for him
Top player.
Super performance and result albeit against a woeful Watford. Unlikely to be a worse performance by any PL team this season. Salah is unbelievable and his goal was magical, give him the contract his performances and goals deserve. Great to see Firmino scoring. Though Kelleher had nothing to do he kept his concentration to make a very good save at the end. Gonna be a tight title race. Surprised Salah and Mane played the 90 minutes, Minamino could have done with game time especially against that Watford team.
Mo Salah is WOW!!! a pleasure to watch him…..Firmino not bad either : )
Time to sack Ranieri…….
@John S: dilly ding dilly dong
@Heckler davies: dilly ding, dilly gone
Class win and 3 more handy points. We will be hard to stop This season as we put last seasons blip behind us
Danny Rose will sleep tonight. Great performance against an albeit poor side!!
Give Mo all the money. Almost 0% chance of being able to replace him
Lewandowski and Salah are the best players in the world on current form.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a PL side as bad as that Watford side today….if they lost 10-0 it wouldn’t have been a surprise! Woeful…
@Ottomaaan: you forgot to mention that they were up against a solid side with a rampant front three, there, I fixed it for you…. :)
@Gordon Larney: no need to fix anything. That was the worst performance I’ve ever seen from a PL side, dreadful stuff and Liverpool could have put 10 past them.
@Ottomaaan: have to agree. I was at the game and never seen such a bad performance from a PL team.
Salah in great form. But how long canhe hold that form? He has 20-25 goals in him a season, but he’s up and down. If he held this form, he’d be close to 40 goals?
Bigger tests against Athletico and United on the way.
@Finn Faulkner: did you like your own comment…
@Finn Faulkner: how long can he do that. ? He has been doing it for the last 4 seasons. 104 goals in 166 games in the Premier league but you think he should score more. Okay so
@Finn Faulkner: you’re gonna need bigger bait on that hook ….
@WESHALLNOTBEMOVED: But by that metric 4 seasons at 40 goals would be 160 goals. He hasn t done that. But my point is that if he can keep that killer hat on his head for a prolonged period, and with our squad almost injury free, he could break records for us. I’m HOPING he keeps this lethal form indefinitely. He still can’t be put in the Messi/Ronaldo category until he starts being seriously clinical. I’d love to see him win the Balloon d’Or this year (or the next)
@len len: No, but seeing as you need likes, here, have mine. Have a lovely day.
@WESHALLNOTBEMOVED: you included his Chelsea stats there, it’s 102 in 153 for Liverpool
@Shane Roche: It’s still an amazing number of goals per season, but I think he can go even further, he needs to keep this current form. Biggest tests are against Athletico and then United.
That salah. Goal was pure roy of the rovers.. Pure art.. He must be a great dancer..
As good as Liverpool are, and they are really good. This in my opinion is all about Klopp.