Edogbo v McCarthy, battle of the benches, and can Harry Byrne pick up where he left off?

Battle of the benches

Leo Cullen has shuffled his deck for today’s visit to Thomond, with nine changes to his team that saw past Sale Sharks last weekend and eight changes to the Leinster XV that started against Munster at the Aviva last month.

Harry Byrne’s completion of his return-to-play protocols following a head injury at La Rochelle sees Ciarán Frawley shift out to 12 — but the inclusion of both men from the start gives Leo Cullen and Jacques Nienaber the luxury of being able to name a six-two split on the bench for this eagerly anticipated interpro.

📢 TEAM NEWS | Here is your Munster side for the sold-out #URC St Stephen's Day Interpro derby against Leinster at Thomond Park 💪

Click the pic for full details.#MUNvLEI #SUAF 🔴
— Munster Rugby (@Munsterrugby) December 22, 2023

📥 | 𝐒𝐞𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐭. 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐧'𝐬 𝐃𝐚𝐲!

Here is the #LeinsterRugby team to face Munster on Tuesday evening in Thomond Park in the #BKTURC #MUNvLEI #FromTheGroundUp pic.twitter.com/9w3pV0584D
— Leinster Rugby (@leinsterrugby) December 22, 2023

And it is perhaps through Leinster’s bench that this game will be won and lost. Heavy artillery in the shapes of Dan Sheehan, Ryan Baird and Jason Jenkins are bound to make immediate gains in the last half an hour; Will Connors, too, is well able to pick a hole in a tired defence with a sleight of hand, not to mind crunching lads coming the other way.

It is in this exact period of recent games in which things have gone arseways for Munster, for whom the second half in general has been an issue all season.

Their bench options this time around don’t reek of the same kind of impact as those on the Leinster sideline, with only back-row options Alex Kendellen and the 19-year-old Brian Gleeson packing a proper whack between them.

Graham Rowntree’s starting XV is strong enough on paper to beat Leinster’s equivalent over 50 to 60 minutes — but recent trends suggest that they will need to build a healthy lead and buckle up for a hairy last quarter if they are to complete the job at Thomond.

Edogbo v McCarthy

edwin-edogbo-carries-with-tom-ahern Munster's Edwin Edgobo. Ben Brady / INPHO Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO

joe-mccarthy-is-tackled-by-asher-opoku-fordjour Leinster's Joe McCarthy. Dan Sheridan / INPHO Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO

Given that — for the moment, anyway — they play in opposite slots in the second row, they may one day form a beautiful friendship in green.

But this meeting of two of the most explosive locks in the country from opposite sides of the gainline is what this fixture is all about.

The hype around McCarthy is both established and justified. The 22-year-old, who has earned five caps for Ireland since his debut against the Wallabies in November 2022, is a rare profile of athlete who complements raw power with refined ball-handling skills.

The same can be said for Edogbo, a year and a half McCarthy’s junior, whose rise has been well signposted and whose absence for Munster in recent weeks has been truly pronounced.

That’s not an exaggeration, either: Edogbo might still be an academy player but at the moment, Munster look like a worse team when the Cobh man doesn’t play.

It says a lot that Munster fans’ disappointment in losing the world-class Tadhg Beirne — unavailable today, as is Conor Murray, due to IRFU player-welfare guidelines — was significantly offset by the sight of Edogbo’s name in today’s starting XV.

Thomond Park will wince at the inevitable collisions between Munster’s loosehead lock and Leinster’s tighthead lock.

And a similar battle could play out between second-row/blindside hybrids Thomas Ahern and Ryan Baird should their minutes overlap this evening.

Can Harry Byrne pick up where he left off?

After an exceptional first hour at Sandy Park last week, Jack Crowley is almost certainly in the driving seat to replace Johnny Sexton as Ireland’s starting out-half come Six Nations time.

But there’s still a bit of road left to run until Paris on 2 February and it is in games like these that Harry Byrne will hope to force his way back into Andy Farrell’s reckoning alongside older brother Byrne and their rival from the southern province.

For 39-odd minutes in Leinster’s victory over La Rochelle at Stade Marcel Deflandre just over a fortnight ago, Harry Byrne produced his finest performance in Leinster colours.

The problem was that it was only 39 minutes.

It’s far from Byrne’s own fault that he picked up the head injury which cut his impressive outing short, of course. But the reality is that the real-life sample size of his long-mooted potential is quite small for a player who will turn 25 in April.

It is true to say that Byrne is gallingly unfortunate to have had his progress so far routinely hampered by injuries. But it is equally true to say that, at the level of the game at which he operates, teams require an out-half who can string together a sequence of 60-plus-minute performances.

Should he be able to steer Leinster to victory at Thomond and carry that momentum into the New Year’s Day meeting with Ulster, the recent complexion of his career won’t be long changing for the better.

Given he’ll spend the rest of this season working under Ireland’s soon-to-be attack coach, Andrew Goodman, one can only hope for the player personally and for the out-half battle nationally that Byrne gets a solid run of it in the coming months.

Munster

15. Simon Zebo
14. Calvin Nash
13. Antoine Frisch
12. Alex Nankivell
11. Shane Daly
10. Jack Crowley
9. Craig Casey

1. Dave Kilcoyne
2. Diarmuid Barron (Captain)
3. Oli Jager
4. Edwin Edogbo
5. Gavin Coombes
6. Tom Ahern
7. John Hodnett
8. Jack O’Donoghue

Replacements:

16. Eoghan Clarke
17. Jeremy Loughman
18. Stephen Archer
19. Brian Gleeson
20. Alex Kendellen
21. Paddy Patterson
22. Tony Butler
23. Seán O’Brien

Leinster

15. Hugo Keenan
14. Jordan Larmour
13. Garry Ringrose (Captain)
12. Ciarán Frawley
11. Rob Russell
10. Harry Byrne
9. Jamison Gibson-Park

1. Andrew Porter
2. Rónan Kelleher
3. Michael Ala’alatoa
4. Ross Molony
5. Joe McCarthy
6. Max Deegan
7. Scott Penny
8. Jack Conan