Johnny Sexton makes bench as Leinster opt for ‘fresh’ line-up for Gloucester

Despite the convincing nature of their opening 42-10 win against Racing last Saturday, Leo Cullen has opted for a degree of “freshness” in opting to make a quartet of changes to Leinster’s starting line-up for their second Heineken Champions Cup game against Gloucester on Friday night at the RDS (kick-off 8pm, live on RTÉ and BT Sport).

Luke McGrath, Rónan Kelleher, Ross Molony and Jack Conan are all promoted from last week’s bench, with Jamison Gibson-Park and Dan Sheehan named among the replacements along with the returning Johnny Sexton, Jordan Larmour, Joe McCarthy and Max Deegan.

“It’s a short turnaround, we’ve talked about the travel and all the rest,” said Cullen in reference to their complicated trek to Le Havre last week and the six-day gap between their first two games. “It was just to freshen up the group, there’s good quality there.”

“To do well in two tournaments you need a serious squad effort. We’ve a very competitive squad at the moment. Most coaches will sit and go through the list of injuries they’ll have at any one time and we do have our fair share, but we still have a nice competitive group.

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“That’s what you need, but in terms of some of the changes it’s trying to bring a bit of freshness to the group particularly when there’s some tight calls there already.”

While Sexton has recovered from the calf injury he sustained prior to the warm-up for Ireland’s win over Australia, Tadhg Furlong’s ankle injury has again ruled him out.

“Well Johnny’s good to go, hopefully. Tadhg just needs a little bit more time,” said Cullen. “We’ll see how he goes next week but he didn’t participate in enough team training this week. The lads are all in good form and excited to get going again after a challenging week last week but the lads were excellent I have to say.

“I think you can see every team has different challenges at this stage of the season. That’s what makes the nature of the tournament in many ways as well. There is certain luck but it’s making sure getting all the things right that you can control yourself.”

For his part George Skivington has made 13 changes from the starting XV which recorded a 22-17 bonus point win over Bordeaux/Begles last week, with fullback Lloyd Evans and wing Alex Hearle are the only remaining starters.

Four of the replacements which made such a big impact in turning last week’s game around with three tries in the final quarter, particularly the Fijian backrower Albert Tuisue, are promoted to the starting team, but Jonny May, Pumas’ outhalf Santiago Carrera and Italian scrumhalf Steve Varney are among those rested.

The injection of four changes should help to guard against any complacency within the Leinster squad, while the memory of losing last season’s final is also fresh enough to reproduce the intensity of last week’s performance.

“The motivation around the tournament for this club is huge, I think everyone knows that,” said Cullen. “We played Racing at the weekend but our last game prior to that was the final, in France as well, in Marseille, where everyone poured so much into the tournament to get to that stage and you don’t get the result.

“Even though we had some challenges last week it was sort of like ‘we’re here now so we’ve got to just deliver and focus on what we can’. That’s pretty much the same message for us this week. We can’t control what the teams the opposition field. We know Gloucester are a very proud club, they’re a well-coached team, with a strong emphasis on the basics and that’s what we’ve tried to prepare well for this week and it’s a short turnaround for both teams. They’d a big, bonus-point win.

“For us, even just the nature of the pool, it’s not just the teams you’re playing against, you’re competing against the other teams as well so in the corner of your eye you’re just looking at what the other teams are doing as well because you want to finish with a higher seeding.

“The higher seeding you get, you get better benefits later on in the tournament and we want to get to the latter stages of the tournament again. So there are lots of things we have to look at.”

Leinster: Hugo Keenan; Jimmy O’Brien, Garry Ringrose (capt), Charlie Ngatai, James Lowe; Ross Byrne, Luke McGrath; Andrew Porter, Ronan Kelleher, Michael Ala’alatoa, Ross Molony, James Ryan, Caelan Doris, Josh van der Flier, Jack Conan.

Replacements: Dan Sheehan, Ed Byrne, Cian Healy, Joe McCarthy, Max Deegan, Jamison Gibson-Park, Johnny Sexton, Jordan Larmour.

Gloucester: Lloyd Evans; Alex Hearle, Giorgi Kveseladze, Billy Twelvetrees, Jacob Morris, George Barton, Ben Meehan (capt); Harry Elrington, Henry Walker, Ciaran Knight, Freddie Thomas, Arthur Clark, Jake Polledri, Jack Clement, Albert Tuisue.

Replacements: Seb Blake, Alex Seville, Kirill Gotovtsev, Alex Craig, Harry Taylor, Charlie Chapman, Seb Atkinson, Kyle Moyle.

Referee: Luc Ramos (France)