Celtic League: They're back. If the ever-dapper Michael Cheika wore a relatively contented look in his designer black suit yesterday it was understandable given the return of five vastly experienced Test frontliners for Friday's trek to the Sportsground. The wild, wild, west mightn't have the red carpet out for Leinster's quintet of stellar names, but given two defeats in the team's three Magners Celtic League games to date, their return is not before time.
Between them, Brian O'Driscoll, Shane Horgan, Girvan Dempsey, Gordon D'Arcy and Malcolm O'Kelly have 284 caps and while Cheika dropped the broadest of hints that the latter two mightn't necessarily start after lengthy recuperation from injuries, the quintet's return can only be a boost after their 33-21 defeat to Llanelli left them eighth and 14 points behind the Scarlets - albeit with two games in hand.
"Everybody seems to be coming back at the right time, I think. Gordon's come back from a fitness point of view, as has Malcolm O'Kelly, so it's starting to be a bit of a jam, but it's a jam that I like to have and we're going to need it going down there."
While his counterpart, Michael Bradley, has welcomed back Ray Hogan, Paul Warwick and Red Robinson from injury in a 25-man Connacht squad, Kieran Lewis, Michael Beirne, Gary Brown, Adam Byrnes and the hamstrung Robert Kearney miss out on Leinster's 22-man squad, with the retention of Luke Fitzgerald further evidence of his rapid rise.
Nor is there any question of easing the big guns back in gradually, not least with only three league games before the Heineken European Cup kicks off.
"They're dying to come back. We had a session yesterday and I had to keep it under control. They're trying to tear in to it so hard that you've got to keep a bit of a rope on it. That's a good sign. It is a bit like starting again and I'm sure Munster will have the same issues as well. As eager as players are to get back in to it, playing a game and getting back into those first touches always needs a bit of re-addressing."
Two seasons ago, in near identikit circumstances, Leinster brought back O'Driscoll, Horgan, O'Kelly, Shane Byrne and Reggie Corrigan for their first starts of the season in round five for an incoherent display in a 34-13 defeat to the Dragons.
Noting the inevitable changes to the team's composition, and mindful of Munster and Ulster welcoming back some of their frontliners for defeats to Glasgow and Edinburgh two weeks ago, Cheika commented: "We've taken note of that, but at the end of the day you can't leave them out. They're quality players, they've been training with us a lot and we would hope that we'd be able to put together a fair bit of harmony already within our organisational structure."
He also cited the improved communication they'll bring to the team. That looked to be a missing ingredient in their inoffensive defence when conceding a bonus point within 23 minutes in Llanelli last Saturday. "We started off making mistakes, and mistakes cost, and they played very well.
"You've got to give them credit. If you look at the first 20 minutes they hardly made a mistake," said Cheika, admitting Leinster were a little shellshocked by the concession of a first-minute try which led to them defending softly.
"We gave them opportunities to offload the ball and that was the key thing in that first 15 or 20 minutes."
A recurring theme was flawed setpieces, failure to secure lineout ball at both ends of the pitch and a pressurised scrum leading to tries conceded or chances going a begging; all to the backdrop of an apparently reduced role for Roly Meates and Brian Blaney's somewhat mysterious fall from first to third choice.
"One thing I'll definitely say is I'm not panicked about it," maintained Cheika. "Our job is to try and continually work to get things right and one of the most notable things will be setpieces. We've improved our scrum; our scrum ball has been getting much better and much cleaner, and we've done a lot of work on it.
"With our lineout there's only one solution, and that's just to keep practising and keep our game knowledge right and keep getting better.
"I think we lost six or seven and of that it was a combination of two bad throws, two missed lifts and two missed communication. So it's lots of things."
Cheika has noticed Connacht stole a considerable amount of lineout ball against Llanelli and Edinburgh. "I'm sure they're going to target that so what we've got to do is help the team turn what is a perceived weakness into a strength and really attack the opposition with that."
Once again, on early available evidence, it looks to be his biggest challenge.
LEINSTER (squad): Felipe Contepomi, Reggie Corrigan, Gordon D'Arcy, Girvan Dempsey, Guy Easterby, Owen Finegan, Luke Fitzgerald, Keith Gleeson, Will Green, Jamie Heaslip, Denis Hickie, Trevor Hogan, Shane Horgan, Bernard Jackman, Stephen Keogh, Ronan McCormack, Brian O'Driscoll, Malcolm O'Kelly, Niall Ronan, Harry Vermaas, Christian Warner, Chris Whitaker.
CONNACHT (squad): Michael Diffley, Andrew Farley, Adrian Flavin, John Fogarty, David Gannon, Ray Hogan, Chris Keane, Matt Lacey, Keith Matthews, Mark McHugh, Conor McPhillips, Matt Mostyn, John Muldoon, Ray Ofisa, Colm Rigney, Daniel Riordan, Ted Robinson, David Slemen, Brett Sturgess, Michael Swift, Tom Tierney, Paul Warwick, Brett Wilkinson, Gavin Williams, Darren Yapp.
