O'Driscoll offers diversion from Saturday's business

Celtic League News:The monotony of the weekly Leinster press briefing was relieved yesterday when Stephen Keogh was asked what he thought of his captain's "pass to himself" on New Year's Eve.

"Yeah, it was something I've never seen before," replied the teak-tough former Shannon flanker. "It obviously worked out in the end. If he had dropped it, it would have been a different story," he laughed.

After the game Brian O'Driscoll claimed he and Denis Hickie had practised the outrageous move on the training ground.

"(Carlos) Spencer would be a classic example of somebody who does that," said coach Michael Cheika. "They said they were working on that. I must admit, I haven't seen them doing so."

But seriously?

"I thought the officials did quite well, to be honest, because it happened very quickly and everybody stopped. A lot of times they would blow that up when you are unsure of something you haven't seen (elsewhere). I thought that was quite good. They waved play on because it was fair. Strange, but fair."

The sequence has already been immortalised on youtube.com, Kevin Maggs and Tommy Bowe revealed as the bewildered defenders.

Anyway, the rest of the press conference focused on the arrival of the Ospreys (and Irish rugby's old friend Gavin Henson) to a sold-out Donnybrook on Saturday evening, the ever frustrating injury list and the scrummaging laws that came into effect on January 1st.

Now pay attention, because the next few paragraphs are a little technical.

"We have to understand the new laws to get the maximum advantage out of them and the main objective of the law is to get in closer," explained Cheika. "There are going to be a lot of teams who come in from a big angle; traditionally they'll scrum from far apart and go for the big hit and work through from there.

"We wouldn't be one of those teams. It will probably impact us less.

"It will come down to how the law is interpreted and the 'hold' sequence and not sitting back, which is a temptation."

The whole issue would be easier to address if Leinster got their starting front row on the field together. Will Green made a welcome return from a neck injury against Ulster but the English tighthead was forced to play the full 80 minutes as loosehead Ronan McCormack suffered nerve damage to his neck and shoulder, which may yet prove a long-term problem.

"Ronan is definitely out for this week. He had a pretty nasty injury there with a bit of time in hospital so we've got to let it settle down and see the extent of the damage and go from there.

"A lot of that just depends on how it settles down. You saw (Chris) Whitaker had the same type of thing. You know it took a long while to get that to settle down afterwards. We won't really find out until tomorrow (Thursday) after the second round of medicals."

Brian Blaney is still nursing damaged ribs so Bernard Jackman is afforded another opportunity to nail down the hooker berth. Winger Shane Horgan is another doubt but is included in the 24-man squad.

Rob Kearney looks set to continue at fullback as Girvan Dempsey's ankle has not healed, while Luke Fitzgerald's shoulder damage, exacerbated pre-Christmas at the Irish training camp in Portugal, appears worse than the initial prognosis.

"Luke will have another MRI scan today so he's unlikely to be available for our Heineken Cup matches," Cheika confirmed.

Adam Larkin has been called up to cover for the injured David Humphreys, who, according to Ulster officials, has an "outside chance" of returning for the away game against the Ospreys on January 27th. Flanker Stephen Ferris is still recovering from surgery on a thumb so misses the trip to Glasgow on Saturday.

LEINSTER - Backs: C Whitaker, G Easterby, F Contepomi, J Sexton, C Warner, G D'Arcy, B O'Driscoll (capt), K Lewis, D Hickie, S Horgan, R Kearney, R McCarron. Forwards: S Wright, W Green, R Corrigan, H Vermaas, B Jackman, T Hogan, M O'Kelly, O Finegan, C Jowitt, S Keogh, K Gleeson, J Heaslip.

ULSTER - Backs: K Campbell, I Boss, A Larkin, P Wallace, K Maggs, P Steinmetz, A Trimble, P McKenzie, M Bartholomeusz, B Cunningham, T Bowe. Forwards: S Best (capt), B Young, J Fitzpatrick, R Best, P Shields, J Harrison, M McCullough, T Barker, R Wilson, N Best, K Dawson, N McMillan.