Ryan Baird ruled out of Leinster’s Champions Cup semi-final against Toulouse

Ryan Baird has been ruled out of Leinster’s Champions Cup semi-final against Toulouse on Saturday April 29th (kick-off 3pm) while the province have given no indication as to whether James Lowe and Josh van der Flier will be fit for that mouth-watering clash between the four and five-time winners.

A Leinster statement confirmed that as a consequence of the shoulder injury which Baird sustained in the first half against Leicester the player “will be unavailable for a few weeks”.

For his part, Lowe “will be further assessed this week” as a result of the calf injury he picked up late on in last Friday’s 55-24 victory.

Van der Flier missed that quarter-final due to the ankle injury he sustained in the last-16 win over Ulster but Leinster’s update merely listed the flanker among those players for whom there were “no further updates”.

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The others who fell into that category are Johnny Sexton (groin), Jamie Osborne (knee), Rónan Kelleher (shoulder), Joe McCarthy (ankle), Cormac Foley (hamstring), Martin Moloney (knee) and Charlie Ngatai (hamstring).

Leinster will on Tuesday announce their squad for their upcoming two games in South Africa, in advance of Saturday’s United Rugby Championship game against Emirates Lions in Emirates Airline Park (kick-off 3pm Irish time – live on TG4, Premier Sports and URC TV).