CONSIDERING THE AMOUNT of injuries in the Leinster camp at the moment Leo Cullen has received a welcome boost with news that he will have a vastly experienced trio available for selection in the province’s Pro12 opener.
Leinster begin their Pro12 campaign on Friday night (7.35) at the RDS against last season’s bottom side, Benetton Treviso.
With the likes of Johnny Sexton, Sean O’Brien, Richardt Strauss, Rhys Ruddock, Jack Conan and Dave Kearney ruled out of the clash, it must have been a relief for the Leinster head coach to hear that Mike McCarthy, Cian Healy and Rob Kearney came through last weekend’s pre-season game against Bath unscathed.
All three will be available for selection on Friday, as will centre Noel Reid, who had a number of injury issues last season.
“Those guys came through well,” Cullen said of the experienced trio.
“Rob played at the end of the season, but he pulled out of the tour [with Ireland, to South Africa].
“He’s looking really sharp in training. It was great to get through 40 minutes. Those guys are up and running, so there’s three pretty experienced guys back in the mix.”
Sexton is still a few weeks off making a return from the shoulder injury that kept him out of the South Africa tour but Cullen insists the out-half is making “good progress”.
It’s still early days for O’Brien (hamstring) and Henshaw (knee) but Cullen is hopeful that they will be back to full fitness in time for the start of Leinster’s Champions Cup campaign, when they host Castres Olympique on 15 October.
“Robbie and Sean, post their surgeries — Robbie had his operation post the [Ireland] tour — they’re making good progress.
“You’re probably looking at five to six weeks with him.
“Seanie had his surgery at the end of the last season. It was probably the most major of the surgeries out of the three of them. He’s probably on a similar timeline to Robbie at the moment.”
Captain Isa Nacewa could yet feature on Friday night depending on how he fares after returning to full contact training this week.
Hooker Richardt Strauss is also on the lengthy casualty list and he will be unavailable for four weeks following a cleanout operation on his knee.
Leinster have lost a number of players to injury during their pre-season, including Jack Conan (ankle, out for eight weeks), Ian Fitzpatrick (cruciate ligament) and Billy Dardis (shoulder, four months).
“We’ve lost a couple of guys but I think we look reasonably OK from an initial point of view,” Cullen added.
“There’s probably 10 or 12 players that are going to filter back over the next six weeks.
“We might be a little bit behind some other teams. Some other teams might have played more players during pre-season.
“But we have a lot of faith now in some of the younger guys that have had opportunities during this period.”
Below is the full injury list released by Leinster today.
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