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Back row Conan also missed the Ulster game after being withdrawn from the win over Connacht two weekends ago, but he looks set for his return against the Bulls.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.”
