Larmour grabs the spotlight
GET the job done was Leo Cullen’s blunt message to his squad this week. Leinster have been virtually unstoppable and can break their own record of 16 consecutive victories – set all the way back in the 2000/01 season – away to Treviso this afternoon.
Yet to taste defeat this term, Cullen’s men can seal a top seeding and a coveted home quarter-final with a sixth straight pool stage triumph today.
Leinster’s head coach will lose 16 players to Six Nations duty in the coming weeks (as well as Will Connors, Ryan Baird and Harry Byrne who will train with the national team as ‘development’ players), but this operation has proven they have ample stocks to cope with such losses.
When that raft of internationals return from Ireland duty at the end of March, Cullen will be hoping they have a quarter-final at their RDS fortress to look forward to on the first weekend of April.
Treviso, despite their lowly position in Pool 1, are no pushovers, especially at home. Leinster’s biggest enemy at the moment is complacency.
With every passing week in this unbeaten campaign, they are being heralded as potential ‘invincibles’ but Cullen isn’t buying into the hype.
Leinster’s stock is rising all the time and every side in Europe is now looking to knock them off their perch.
The landscape could be very different by the time April rolls around and securing that top seed is paramount.
‘We know the importance of home quarter-finals in this competition,’ said the Leinster head coach.
‘We’d all be kicking ourselves if there were things within our control during the game that we didn’t execute on.
‘Everyone has worked hard over the course of this block. It’s about finishing the job now.
‘It became quite clear with the way the other pools unfolded last weekend – win the game, get the top seed and we can move on then.’ Accordingly, Cullen has named a strong outfit for this trip to Italy.
James Ryan has returned from a calf injury that he picked up against Connacht earlier this month and is back alongside Devin Toner in the Leinster engine room.
They could very well be the starting locks in that championship opener against the Scots at the beginning of next month.
There was much speculation about Ryan succeeding Rory Best as the next Ireland captain, but Johnny Sexton’s appointment seems like the right call, for now.
Ryan, who is still finding his voice as a leader within the Leinster and Ireland set-ups, can concentrate on developing his game and his leadership skills in the months ahead.
Toner will have a spring in step after his midweek recall. The Meathman has recovered brilliantly from his shock World Cup omission with a string of brilliant displays for his province.
The fact that Jean Kleyn, who was seemingly selected by Joe Schmidt ahead of Toner for that trip to Japan, did not make the cut makes that call all the more perplexing. Toner will be back where he belongs, in a green shirt, very soon.
A host of these Leinster players will be standing for the anthems in the capital in a fortnight’s time. The backrow selection is intriguing in that regard. Max Deegan and Caelan Doris were both called up to Farrell’s squad earlier this week. Just rewards for the pair of young tyros.
The promising No8s have been going head-to-head for a starting spot all season but they both start today alongside Josh van der Flier, with Deegan showing his versatility by shifting to blindside.
After a tough week following his surprise omission from Farrell’s plans, Rhys Ruddock must make do with a spot on the bench this weekend.
No doubt, that Ireland snub will sting and it may drive Ruddock onto a new level in the months to come.
That can only be a good thing for Leinster and Ireland.
“It is about
finishing the job now”