Leo Cullen has made two changes to the Leinster team to face Vodacom Bulls in Friday’s URC semi-final at the RDS Arena (Kick-off 7.35pm – Live on TG4, Premier Sports and URC TV), with the Lions duo of Jack Conan and Robbie Henshaw returning to the starting XV.
Johnny Sexton also returns from injury to take his place among the replacements. Henshaw renews his partnership alongside Garry Ringrose while Conan’s recall means Caelan Doris reverts to blindside in what has become the familiar first-choice backrow this season, in tandem with Josh van der Flier, for both Leinster and Ireland.
This means that last week’s back three of Jimmy O’Brien at fullback and Jordan Larmour and Rory O’Loughlin are retained. James Lowe (shin) and Hugo Keenan (hand) were ruled out last week and have again not been named in the matchday 23. Ronan Kelleher (shoulder) also remains sidelined.
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The 20-year-old Joe McCarthy, who made 15 of Leinster’s 103 tackles in last week’s 76-14 filleting of Glasgow, thus retains his place in the secondrow as well, while Ryan Baird and Ciarán Frawley revert to the bench, with Harry Byrne missing out.
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As for the Bulls, Jake White has retained the same starting XV from last week’s quarter-final win over the Sharks, with the fit-again Kurt-Lee Arendse and Bismarck du Plessis both named among the replacements for this semi-final.
Arendse, whose performances had him named South Africa’s URC Player of the Month for March, has recovered from a fractured thumb which sidelined the fleet-footed fullback since late April to add more X factor off the bench.
Veteran hooker Du Plessis was a late withdrawal for the Bulls’ win over the Pumas in the Currie Cup two weeks ago, and was omitted from the matchday 23 for the dramatic victory in Pretoria last Saturday.
In explaining their rationale for sticking with a fairly settled side, ten of this starting XV also started against La Rochelle and 18 of the match-day squad are again involved a fortnight on, Cullen said: “It’s a short week also, so there’s always that bit of a challenge on short weeks. The Bulls face the same challenge. The guys acquitted themselves last week, but (we made) a couple of changes to keep a bit of pressure on.
“The group are working well, a couple of guys were unlucky this week, because of the importance of the Monday and Tuesday part of the week and getting guys out there, so that’s the balance of stability.”
Keenan trained in today’s captain’s run at the RDS and Cullen confirmed the fullback could have been involved against the Bulls, but they opted to stick with the same back three.
“We just wanted to see Hugo train, and I thought the other guys did quite well last week. It was just him getting through the week’s training, and he ran around with the guys again today. It was one of those tight calls, but he’s good to go. It’s a semi-final, so you don’t know if you have a next week or not, but he got through the week well.”
Leinster kicked off their season with a 31-3 over the Bulls last September, albeit they hit the ground running that evening and the scoreline doesn’t reflect how competitive the Pretoria-based side were in chunks of that game.
“They’re very well organised, and a very well-coached team for starters,” said Cullen. “If you’re trying to put yourself in their shoes, it’s the growth, familiarity, understanding of traveling to the northern hemisphere to play, dealing with the conditions and teams, getting better all the time and you can see that in their results.
“They have a lot of quality and a lot of stability, their team doesn’t change that much if you look at their selections, and they’re very well led by Marcell Coetzee who understands Irish rugby particularly well.
“He’s still a real physical presence and a huge talisman for them. The Bulls DNA is a string kicking game, set piece, very physical and abrasive in the contact area, that’s in their mindset. That’s what they’ll default to in big games. It’s a great challenge for our guys.
“We talked plenty over when it was mooted about South African teams coming in and we’ve seen what they add to the tournament. There are two Irish v South African games in the semi-finals which is great and brilliant for the competition. One up here, so we’re happy we don’t have to figure out all the permutations of flights and travel and all the rest.
“You have Ulster down in Cape Town so you saw some great quality games over the four quarter-finals, and it gets harder. The season is long but we’re making sure we have that stamina. Our guys have been well-managed during the season, a huge amount of work has gone in both from players, all the players we used to make sure we are at home. The home comforts, we want to make it a point of difference for us.
“Hopefully we get a big crowd tomorrow, because we’ve had unbelievable support all through the season. It’s just trying to finish out, get through a semi-final. We had a lot of good stuff in the quarter-final, but unfortunately you don’t carry a lot of those points over to this week.
“We need to put in a good performance again, but the Bulls won’t make it easy because they’ll come with a plan. Listening to some of the sound-bites coming from them this week, they’re coming with a plan and we just need to impose our game the way we’re trying to impose it on them.”
LEINSTER: Jimmy O’Brien; Jordan Larmour, Garry Ringrose, Robbie Henshaw, Rory O’Loughlin; Ross Byrne, Jamison Gibson-Park; Andrew Porter, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Furlong; Joe McCarthy, James Ryan (capt); Caelan Doris, Josh van der Flier, Jack Conan.
Replacements: Seán Cronin, Cian Healy, Michael Ala’alatoa, Ross Molony, Ryan Baird, Luke McGrath, Johnny Sexton, Ciarán Frawley.
BULLS: Canan Moodie; David Kriel, Cornal Hendricks, Harold Vorster, Madosh Tambwe; Chris Smith, Zak Burger; Herhard Steenekamp, Johan Grobbelaar, Mornay Smith; Walt Steenekamp, Ruan Nortje; Marcell Coetzee (capt), Arno Botha, Elrigh Louw.
Replacements: Bismarck du Plessis, Simphiwe Matanzima, Robert Hunt, Janko Swanepoel, WJ Steenkamp, Embrose Papier, Morne Steyn, Kurt-Lee Arendse.
