Matt O'Connor finds himself in a position of strength. The Leinster head coach stated yesterday that he would not be influenced by the need for Ireland players to get exposure when it comes to team selection.
The main priority is victory both away and home to the Northampton Saints in round three and four of the Heineken Cup, which commences with a trip to Franklin’s Gardens on Saturday, December 14th.
That means no intrusion from above about who to pick at outhalf or anywhere else for that matter.
"We run it as we see fit once we get to the massive games and the Heineken Cup," said O'Connor yesterday. "You pick who is going to get you a result. End of."
Taxing month
What should have been an extremely taxing month for the genial Australian, actually resulted in two victories away to the Dragons and Treviso.
"I never signed on to lose 20 blokes but that's the nature of it," O'Connor continued in reference to the 18 in Ireland camp, Richardt Strauss and most disconcerting of all the newly signed Zane Kirchner's enforced call-up by the Springboks.
“If you coach a team who has a lot of world class blokes, a lot of internationals on the roster, you’re going to miss them. If you’re going to be good enough for Leinster, we need you to be knocking on the door of Test rugby so that’s a given. You’ve just got to cope, that’s the nature of the league.
“Meritocracy will add a new dimension to that but the guys in the squad over the last month have been outstanding.”
Nonetheless, O’Connor intends on flooding Saturday’s match day squad to face the Scarlets with as many returning Ireland players as possible.
Mike Ross will replace Marty Moore off the bench at some stage while Luke Fitzgerald, Ian Madigan, Dave Kearney, Mike McCarthy, the scrumhalves (Eoin Reddan and Isaac Boss), loosehead props (Cian Healy and Jack McGrath) and Gordon D’Arcy could all conceivably get some minutes.
“Rossy was injured for a lot of the build up to the autumn series so he hasn’t done a lot of work in our environment. It is just an opportunity to keep the momentum going with him and get reintegrated with our stuff.”
Devin Toner, Jamie Heaslip and Seán O'Brien are expected to be rested after an arduous November series. Toner played 216 minutes while Heaslip was on the field for every second of all three Test matches against Samoa, Australia and New Zealand.
Head-hunted
Brian O'Driscoll (Concussion) and Rob Kearney (ribs) are not being considered. Seán Cronin took a knock against New Zealand.
On the imminent threat of Heaslip and O’Brien being head-hunted by a French club, O’Connor stated: “The responsibility is on Leinster to create an environment where they want to stay.
“They’ve got to make the financial decision at the end of the day but we have to make the environment something they want to be a part of. They are both world class blokes. They demonstrated that through the November series and you would hope that correlates through Irish rugby understanding their value and how important they are to the game in Ireland.
“Of course you weigh in on it and try to put your case forward for them to stay. The reality is it’s not apples for apples. If it were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. So that’s the reality. They end up their priorities in terms of where they’re going to be and where they’re going to play their best footie.”
