HE HAS been forced to bide his time for a combination of reasons this season, but Harry Byrne did his chances of future selection no harm in Leinster’s United Rugby Championship success over Dragons at the RDS on Saturday.

Because of a hamstring injury, it wasn’t until 26 November of last year that Byrne made his first competitive appearance of 2022/23 – as a half-time replacement for Charlie Ngatai in another home triumph against Glasgow Warriors. Saturday’s visit of the Welsh region was only his third start of the current URC campaign, albeit it was his second in succession following last month’s encounter with Cardiff in the same venue.

The absence of his older brother Ross, Jonathan Sexton and Ciaran Frawley has opened the door for Byrne to feature from the start at out-half and he capitalised on this opportunity with a brace of opening period tries to supplement three conversions off the kicking tee. Charlie Tector – a Grand Slam winner with the Ireland U20s last year – was also given a short run-out in Byrne’s spot off the bench and claimed his first try in professional club rugby on the stroke of full-time.

“He’s had a few niggles, Harry. Been a bit of a frustrating run for him. With Johnny and Ross away, obviously Ciaran Frawley has been injured as well, it has been a great window for Harry to run the team. You can see he does it really well. Scores a couple of tries in the first half. He has run the team well during the week, which is the role of the 10 really,” Leinster head coach Leo Cullen remarked of the younger Byrne sibling after the game.

“Even Charlie [Tector] gets on there for 10 minutes at the end and gets in for a try as well. He was dying to get on. Those guys have worked well. We talked about it here yesterday, that they’ve worked well together during this period. They need to continue to improve and look to improve, week on week.”

While their 14th consecutive league win of the season moves Leinster 12 points clear at the summit and leaves them on the cusp of a top-two finish at the end of the regular URC campaign, Cullen felt his side’s performance was quite disjointed over the course of Saturday’s game. Although the winning margin of 43-14 suggests it was a comfortable night at the office for the hosts, 24 of their points were accumulated across the closing minutes of each half.

Although satisfied to come away with a bonus point victory at the expense of 15th-place Dragons, Cullen is hoping to see some improvements from his charges for their visit to Edinburgh on Saturday week (4 March).

“You’ve got to give Dragons credit. They’re a proud team. They looked like a tight, cohesive group from the minute they rocked up today. It has been well documented some of the stuff that is going on in the background there, but talking to some of their backroom team, it brings the group closer together,” Cullen added.

“There was the two tries before half-time. It did change the complexion really, didn’t it? It was 14-7 and we were making hard work of a few different things, playing into the wind and then we get in for the two tries. We know we need to be better moving forward.

“For the group that we have, it’s plenty of learning. It’s making sure we actually learn the lessons and make sure we bring the right approach to preparation leading into our next game, which is against Edinburgh now in a couple of weeks.”