Leinster
coach Matt O’Connor, so clearly at odds with Ireland’s player management plan, believes the refusal to release
Jamie Heaslip
,
Rob Kearney
, Jack McGrath,
Devin Toner
and Sean O’Brien for tonight’s vital game against league leaders the Glasgow Warriors is damaging the Pro 12’s reputation.
“I think the player management system needs to be restructured,” said O’Connor. “I think it hurts the league.
“There are a lot of games in the Pro 12 that are impacted on by the lack of availability of Test players. I think if we are talking about competing with the bigger leagues in Europe, the Top14 and the Premiership, and the ability to maximise the commercial potential of those, I think we need to look at how often the very best, marquee players are playing Pro 12 rugby for Leinster.”
"There was a conversation, how two-way it was is debatable," O'Connor added about the communication lines with Ireland coach Joe Schmidt.
Glasgow coach Gregor Townsend has reintegrated four players – Stuart Hogg, Tommy Seymour, Mark Bennett and Finn Russell – who started against Ireland last Saturday, with replacements Fraser Brown, Tim Swinson and Rob Harley also in the starting XV. Jonny Gray and Adam Ashe are on the bench.
Game time
Eoin Reddan, Ian Madigan, Marty Moore and Jordi Murphy do return from the Ireland bench to the Leinster XV with Cian Healy, Sean Cronin and Luke Fitzgerald also in the squad.
That means Heaslip, O'Brien, Kearney, McGrath, Toner and Mike Ross (if selected) will return for the Champions Cup quarter-final against Bath at the Aviva stadium on Saturday week with little or – in O'Brien's case – no game time for Leinster.
"That's the decision the Irish management made," said O'Connor, who stressed the problem could be exacerbated next season by the World Cup running to October 31st. "It's unlikely that it will be better next year with the World Cup."
Leinster are currently fifth in the table, eight points behind Glasgow and six points clear of Connacht, with three of their last four matches on the road, including a trip to Belfast on April 24th.
“It’s huge,” said O’Connor of tonight’s game at the RDS. “We can’t afford to drop any points in the league, we need to make sure that as much as we can control what happens, we’ve got to win.”
They could still earn a home semi-final or, conceivably, miss out on Champions Cup qualification should the three provinces finish above them.
“That’s the system,” O’Connor continued. “Their guys are playing and we haven’t got a full group to pick from. That’s what we have been dealt. There is no point whinging about it. We’ve got to get the best out of those we’ve got and get a result.”
He also noted this long-standing problem has been worsened by the French and English takeover of European competitions.
"It's not a new situation. Unfortunately when Europe was put back together the feeling was, driven by the French, that they wanted to keep April largely for European Cup competitions. We are the most effected, having so many internationals, post Six Nations.
“But we’ve got to crack on.”
Meanwhile, O'Connor flatly ruled out reports that Kane Douglas is leaving Leinster this summer. Despite being one season into a three-year contract, The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that the Australian Rugby Union may allow Wallabies coach Michael Cheika select the 25-year-old lock in his World Cup squad but only if Douglas commits to playing Super Rugby in 2016.
“No,” laughed O’Connor to this suggestion. “And the reality is that if they want to pick any of our players they have full scope to pick them because there is nothing we can do in relation to stopping them.
“But he’ll be playing for Leinster (next season). We would fully support him going to the World Cup but it has got to be from here.”
O’Connor previously stated that if the Wallabies start selecting overseas players it would lead to a mass player drain from Australia but on this occasion he diluted that by adding: “Don’t underestimate Cheiks, who knows.”
