TOMMY O’BRIEN AND Jimmy O’Brien emerged as injury concerns for Ireland’s upcoming Nations Championship campaign after they were forced off during Leinster’s URC win against Munster on Saturday.

Tommy O’Brien was replaced in the second half, leaving the pitch in clear pain with an apparent leg injury.

28-year-old O’Brien missed Ireland’s tour to Australia and New Zealand in July due to injury, so Ireland boss Andy Farrell will be waiting anxiously for the latest update on the Leinster man.

His fellow Leinster wing, Jimmy O’Brien, was also forced off injured during the province’s victory over Munster. He suffered a head injury and was replaced just before half-time.

“Jimmy took a head knock, and he didn’t come through his first step there, so I’m not sure. I haven’t seen him in the dressing room,” said Leinster head coach Leo Cullen on Saturday night.

“Tommy came off, so again, I’m not 100% sure how he is. We’ll get him checked here now.”

Tommy and Jimmy O’Brien were both named in Ireland’s 36-man squad for the Nations Championship, joining Rob Baloucoune, Mack Hansen, Hugo Keenan, Jamie Osborne and Jacob Stockdale as Farrell’s back three options.

As Farrell assesses the health of his Ireland squad 12 days out from their clash against Argentina, Leinster boss Leo Cullen is now focused on Friday night’s visit to Connacht in the URC.

Leinster will be without their Ireland international contingent for that game, meaning it’s set to be a team featuring wholesale changes against Stuart Lancaster’s side.

“It’s a completely different challenge next Friday to today,” said Cullen.

“Today, those lads finish off that sequence of games and go off into camp, and it creates amazing opportunities, which are some of the best weeks to be involved coaching at Leinster.

“Connacht are riding high, particularly when they’re playing at home. They score a lot of tries. Listen, we know in terms of Stuart and his coaching, it will be a great challenge for our guys.”

Cullen will obviously be keeping a keen eye on Ireland in the coming weeks, and he’s as interested as anyone to see if Farrell mimics Leinster’s decision to use Dan Sheehan at number eight.

Sheehan had his first start at the back of the scrum against Munster and Cullen was pleased with his impact.

He believes it’s something Ireland could look at too.

“It’s definitely a live option for them, whether that is in-game maybe or what because you have your bench,” said Cullen. “You want to get Rónan [Kelleher] off the bench potentially, or if Rónan is starting and Dan, whatever way that plays out. But it is good. I don’t think there’s any negative there.

“Getting dynamic players on the field is the big thing, isn’t it? In terms of the profile, a bit of versatility is good for the team. It’s the players as well: they like a challenge. We have seen a bit of that this season already.

“We had Andrew [Porter] move back across to tighthead in round one, Robbie [Henshaw] for round two in South Africa [moving into the back row], which we had prepped for that week because we had a 4/4 split on the bench because we were lighter on numbers for that second game.

“And then with Dan this week as well. It’s good. It gives us options for when we come to knockout games. They are live options.

“There are certain blocks of the season where they can be pretty attritional, and this is game five of six. We’ll see what plays out. We remain open-minded.”