Both Leinster and Ulster face anxious waits over the coming days as they count the cost of their brutal URC league game on Friday night in the RDS.
Leinster came back from three tries and a man down to win 38-29 as Ulster also drew two yellow cards in the second half and lost John Cooney and Iain Henderson to head injuries.
Cian Healy, who was shown the red card for his high tackle on Tom Stewart after 20 minutes, is unlikely to escape sanction with Leinster due to meet Racing 92 in Le Havre for their first Champions Cup match on Saturday.
Tadhg Furlong also limped from the pitch at the end of the match, giving coach Leo Cullen a possible double prop problem as they prepare to face the French giants.
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While the Irish loosehead was unhappy with the red card shown by referee Christophe Ridley after consulting TMO Rowan Kitt, replays showed Healy can have few complaints about the decision.
Stewart was running with the ball in hand as Healy stepped in to make the tackle. The first point of contact between the players was head on head. After the tackle was made, the Ulster hooker went off injured and did not return to the game.
“We’ll see how it goes. It’s hard to say, but, we’ll see,” said a non-committal Leinster coach Leo Cullen on the possibility of a Healy suspension. On Furlong, who recently returned from a troublesome calf injury, Cullen was similarly vague.
“He [Furlong] just felt a bit of tightness there, hopefully it’s not too bad,” said Cullen. “Somewhere in his leg. I don’t think it’s too bad, he didn’t think it was too bad.”
Dan McFarland was also styling his answers on head collisions as less is more, although, in fairness the Ulster coach may not have had a chance so quickly after the match to have seen reviews.
McFarland will want to review James Lowe’s collision with scrumhalf Cooney, which resulted in the latter also leaving the field for a HIA. There was no sanction handed out to the Leinster winger.
Much of the debate around that collision will centre around whether the Leinster and Ireland winger, who was carrying the ball in a second-half offensive move, led with the elbow of his free arm, when Cooney executed the tackle.
“I don’t know,” said McFarland when asked about Cooney. On whether there had been any medical feedback, McFarland answered “no”.
When asked whether there was concern about the player’s eligibility for Ulster’s European game away to Sale next Sunday, the Ulster coach said “yeah”.
Not only Cooney and Stewart had forced departures as Ian Henderson was another Ulster injury concern as he also left for a HIA after colliding with Jamison Gibson Park’s shoulder midway through the second half.
Ulster’s James Hume and Nick Timoney were both sin-binned in the second half, Hume for going high on Garry Ringrose, leaving a 14-man Leinster playing against 13-man Ulster for a short period.
