LEO CULLEN, THE Leinster coach has said he is willing to be patient with his experimental decision to switch Cian Healy and Andrew Porter in his front-row.
Porter, schooled as a loosehead, has since made his name on the opposite side of the scrum but will now start his first game for his province at No1 since 2016, when Leinster take on the Bulls tomorrow. Healy, a veteran loosehead, is about to discover the joys of tighthead scrummaging, after being named on the bench at No18 for tomorrow’s season opener.
Each player has focussed on their new role in pre-season – although Cullen confessed it is one thing changing position on the training paddock, quite another to do it in live competition.
“This has been in our thoughts for a while really,” said Cullen earlier at lunchtime today. “They are pretty open minded, Andrew and Cian, and it has gone well from a training point of view, so I am looking forward to seeing what it looks like in reality.
“For Cian, playing tighthead is a big ask but that is the mindset of both these fellas is that they are keen to do it, and also with some of the resources we have, if Andrew wanted to move to loosehead, or certainly try out, we needed a little more cover at tighthead. Vakh Abdalaze has obviously come back from a long-standing back injury.
“They have really focussed on this over the course of pre-season and we are looking forward to seeing how the lads go.”
When asked if he was prepared to be patient and give this experiment time to bed in, Cullen insisted he was.
“We have a block of five games and I watched the Lions and that was the thing that intrigued me the most how Trevor Nyakane played tighthead in the first Test and then at loosehead in the second Test and the impact he made.
“There is no reason in my mind why the two lads can’t have a similar impact. They have that ability. They don’t get bogged down unnecessarily. They don’t get overawed by challenges. If anything they embrace that challenge.
“We have seen a fair amount over the course of pre-season which gives us confidence that we can persist with it for a period. Cian, it is probably more of a challenge for him than it is for Andrew.”
