IT’S RARE THAT any rugby coach has a full deck to choose from, but over the last couple of weeks the treatment rooms at Leinster HQ been a little too busy for comfort.
A lengthy injury list is currently putting Leinster’s much-vaunted squad depth to the test. This weekend they head to Gloucester for a Champions Cup clash without the services of Johnny Sexton, Tadhg Furlong, Robbie Henshaw, Charlie Ngatai, Luke McGrath, Max Deegan, Ed Byrne, Jason Jenkins and Ciarán Frawley, to name a few. Throw in the need to manage the minutes of their Ireland internationals at this time of year, and it’s made for some interesting team selections over recent weeks.
Ireland head coach Andy Farrell will be hoping those still standing make it through the next couple of weekends unscathed.
The good news is that the latest update delivered by Leinster on Monday was largely positive. Sexton and Furlong and both expected to be fit in time for the Six Nations, which kicks off 4 February.
However the start of the tournament may come too soon for influential centre Henshaw, who managed just four minutes of rugby in the Autumn internationals and hasn’t been seen since.
Henshaw had wrist surgery in November and Leinster senior coach Stuart Lancaster admits the 29-year-old might not win the race to be fit for the start of the Six Nations.
“He’s getting closer and closer,” Lancaster says.
“I don’t know [if he'll be fit before the Six Nations]. I don’t think he’s at the same position as Tadhg and Johnny is to be honest.”
With Henshaw sidelined, Leinster have been pleased with how 21-year-old Jamie Osborne has stepped up. The versatile centre has delivered a series of eye-catching displays across the Christmas/New Year period which has seen him touted as a possible World Cup bolter.
The Naas man has already spent time in Ireland camp and Lancaster believes he’d be ready to step up in the Six Nations, should Andy Farrell give him the call.
“Definitely he’s international quality. He has got the ability to play both central positions and full back.
He reminds me physically of Robbie Henshaw who can play both 12 and 13. He can carry hard with the traffic into the 12 channel but he’s also got the football ability to play 13, he’s a good distributor. He’s got good pace, he’s obviously a big man, he’s got a massive left boot, hence his ability to play at 15 as well.
“Personally I think he’ll settle into the central positions and be a little like Robbie who has got the ability to play at 12 and 13.
“He’s quite an introverted lad, quite a quiet lad, but he’s definitely grown in confidence and belief and his personality is coming out now. He’s played for us in big games now and in terms of his evolution, he’s there or thereabouts. I don’t know if he’ll make the squad with Ireland, I’ve not spoken to Faz about it, he won’t be far off I would have thought.”
This weekend will be a big one for those players hoping to catch Farrell’s eye, with the Ireland boss set to name his Six Nations squad in the coming weeks.
Leinster will head to Gloucester expecting a much sterner challenge than when the sides met last month – the province putting nine tries past a heavily-depleted Gloucester team at the RDS.
Leinster’s insistence that the English side will be a different challenge on home soil isn’t just lip service. Last Friday, before Leinster’s URC clash at Ospreys the following day, Lancaster and head coach Leo Cullen made the trip to Kingsholm to take in Gloucester’s Premiership clash with Saracens.
“From my time with England, you always see things you wouldn’t necessarily see on the tape, but you also get a sense of the atmosphere, what happens in the warm up, the environment, you get to visualise yourself as a coach being in that environment and making decisions, and obviously you put yourself the ‘what-if’ scenarios, as well as watching two good sides go at each other,” Lancaster explains.
“So we were really pleased we went. Will it help us? Hopefully it will [give us], that 1% or 2% in terms of being able to prepare the players because I’ve been there a few times before, Leo has been there a few times, but a lot of our players have never been there. So to go and feel the atmosphere and what it meant for the players to play against Saracens, the disappointment they had at the end of the game, it is invaluable really because it helps you prepare the players properly.”
For the squad, it also reinforces the message that Cullen and his coaches aren’t taking any game lightly. Still unbeaten across both competitions this season, Leinster’s players are constantly reminded that they can’t afford to ease up.
During the morning video reviews yesterday, the forwards were even shown clips of last season’s Champions Cup final defeat to La Rochelle again – images that by now much be burned into their brains.
“Obviously you want to remind the players at various times throughout the season of what the very, very best are doing and what the very, very best look like,” Lancaster adds.
“Obviously you constantly reinforce things that have gone well in the past when we’ve beaten big teams, but also little reminders to say ‘this is what the top end looks like.’ The margins are so small.”
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Originally published at 0700
