Leinster bid to right the biggest wrong of their Pro12 campaign to date when taking the trek to Newport tomorrow and seeking to avenge their shock loss to the Welsh region in February which ended a 21-match winning sequence at the RDS.
That defeat, as much any other, has contributed to seriously imperilling their customary place in the league play-offs. Leinster have finished in the top two, and thus earned a home semi-final, in each of the five years since the play-offs were introduced. They have not finished outside the top three since ending up in eighth place in the 2003-04 season.
Rested a dozen
Still, with one eye on tomorrow week’s European
Champions Cup
, Matt O’Connor has rested a dozen of last week’s starting line-up, with only Mike McCarthy, Jimmy Gopperth and Ben Te’o retained (Jordi Murphy and Luke Fitzgerald do feature on the bench).
Similarly, Toulon are expected to rest some of their older guard for today’s match away to Bernard Jackman’s Grenoble, namely Cedric Haymans, Ali Williams, Bakkies Botha and Chris Masoe, with dynamic hooker Guilhem Guirado, centre Maxime Mermoz and Drew Mitchell also in line for a weekend off.
Most significantly though, Matt Giteau, Bryan Habana and Leigh Halfpenny are expected to step up their recuperation from injury by returning to the starting line-up and thus increase Bernard Laporte’s options next week.
The seven-day turnaround has at least enabled O’Connor to promote six of last week’s bench. Opportunity may knock for some of tomorrow’s starting line-up, including Zane Kirchner, Dave Kearney and especially Gordon D’Arcy given the porous nature of Leinster’s defence recently, but as with the notion of moving Fitzgerald into outside centre, it seems O’Connor’s colours are nailed to the mast regarding his 10-12-13 axis. The starting player most likely to force his way into the Toulon semi-final is perhaps Eoin Reddan.
Territory Leinster have won
on their last four visits to Rodney Parade and, four points outside the play-offs, they are in must-win territory here. It would appear they have more to play for than a Dragons side who secured a Challenge Cup semi-final against Edinburgh at the expense of Cardiff last weekend.
Yet, perhaps because necessity is the mother of invention, Lyn Jones has made just three personnel changes, which includes the return of Welsh and Lions number eight Toby Faletau, as the Dragons seek a first ever league double over Leinster. “European rugby is nice and we will think about that next week but now it’s about Leinster and we are not in the position where we can rest players,” said Jones.
