Johnny Sexton set to return against Connacht as Leinster shuffle pack

Johnny Sexton looks set to be among a host of frontline players to return for Leinster as they bid to make it 13 wins on the trot this season when they entertain Connacht at the RDS next Sunday. Leo Cullen has confirmed he will shake things up again for this weekend.

He sent a team with about half his frontline men involved to Thomond Park on St Stephen’s night and they just about did enough to maintain their perfect start to the season in a thrilling 20-19 win over a fully loaded Munster side.

Cullen said he will again rotate his squad this weekend as they bid to strengthen their lead at the top of the URC and also keep an eye on the upcoming Champions Cup games against Racing 92 and Gloucester.

“Yeah, it was just trying to manage the lads really. Everyone has obviously done something slightly different over the last while.

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“If you think there were those nine games, a lot of players had a break week straight away post-November, so that was obviously one of the weeks off. So, again a lot of guys will be out this week, other guys will be out next week, just trying to manage the group well, so they are all fresh and raring to go when Europe comes around. Obviously we are back into the Six Nations after that.”

Cullen was pleased with the way players stepped up, not least in the second row where Joe McCarthy continued to build on his growing reputation and Ryan Baird calling the lineout.

“It was a new experience for Ryan, again just putting himself into that situation where he’s leading the forwards in terms of the lineout piece. I thought Joe was very good in terms of his physicality. He throws himself into everything, Joe, which is great. But it was a good physical performance from him.”

Cullen has already shifted his focus to the Connacht clash and is wary of a backlash from several of his former players who have moved west to the Sportsground.

“We will have a slightly different group that will come now next week. Connacht, with the amount of guys there that are ex-Leinster guys in particular, it’s such a big challenge for us.

“That Connacht game always is. The guys that have gone there, the likes of Peter Dooley, Josh Murphy, Dave Hawkshaw and Adam Byrne, those four in particular who have literally just left the building. Those guys will be highly motivated to come back, so yeah, it’s one that we need to make sure we turn the page quickly for and get back to working hard, even though it’s a relatively short week.”

Meanwhile, Scott Penny continued his remarkable scoring return, running in his 25th try in just 46 games for Leinster and also scoring for the third game in a row against Munster, although that was news to him.

“Maybe it is, I actually don’t know. I’m not keeping count,” said the 23-year old.

His try after 49 minutes got Leinster back in the game after Munster opened up a 14-6 lead following the binning of number eight Max Deegan. A neat training ground move caught out the home side when hooker Dan Sheehan slipped a pass out the back after a tapped penalty and Penny did the rest.

“It’s almost a new starter play,” explained Penny. “You’ve got your scrum, lineout and these tap-and-go penalties are getting really big now. I think a lot of teams try to copy what other teams do and see what’s working. So, we have obviously taken a few of ours from other teams and made some slight tweaks. But we have been pretty effective with them over the last few weeks.”

Sheehan, another try-scoring machine, got his 24th try in 38 games when he went the conventional route from another tapped penalty and drove over.

“We knew we were without Deego for 10 minutes, so we tried to go to our maul options, tried to slow down the clock and obviously our maul was pretty effective in that 10-minute period,” added Penny.

“We got inside their 22 and we really capitalised on it. “The first-half in particular was very tough, and then playing 10 minutes with 14 men with the crowd being as loud as they were, and the conditions, I think that really shows how strong the character in this team is.”