Sod's law having accounted for four prospective Leinster outhalves before the start of the season proper, the six-week trialist Nathan Turner, a little known 27-year-old Australian, could well fill the jinxed position for the province's opening Guinness Interprovincial at home to Connacht on Friday week.
No sooner had Paul Burke's much trumpeted relocation hit financial snags and he was being re-routed to Harlequins, than the discarded Barry Everitt had upped and left for London Irish in understandable pursuit of a professional contract. Ironically, Everitt would possibly be a shoe-in now.
Then, scarcely 20 minutes into their first pre-season friendly, Emmet Farrell tore his cruciate knee ligaments and will almost certainly miss Leinster's entire European Cup pool matches and their forthcoming interpro campaign. Whereupon, the newly contracted Andy Dunne suffered concussion in Leinster's defeat to Swansea last Saturday and is also ruled out of the Connacht game.
The cruel, ill-timed injury to Farrell is a blow to province and player alike. As much as the arrival of Matt Williams as backs' coach helped transform Leinster last season, the biggest playing catalyst was Farrell. In nine games prior to Farrell's selection they had lost five, and of their 17 tries, nine came in one game against Connacht (as had two of their four wins). But from effectively averaging a try per game in eight outings, Leinster suddenly cut loose with 10 tries in a three-game winning run-in against Stade Francais, Glasgow Caledonians and Leicester, all bar two by the backs, with O'Farrell scoring 55 points.
He also marshalled much of Ireland's best-ever "A" campaign and Blackrock's free-scoring promotion push. "Our backline really started to fire with Emmet there and it's a desperate blow for a great bloke and the team's organisation, because he really thought he was going to push harder at the top two outhalves," admits Williams.
However, amid the ever-reducing outhalf options, fate at least lent Leinster a helping hand in the shape of Turner who "just popped up in Dublin" according to Williams after his legal studies saw the player transferred from London to Dublin.
Turner presented his credentials to the since departed Mike Ruddock, who offered Turner a six-week trial which Williams now admits is "manna from heaven", adding "he really hasn't played much for two years, a bit like Stu Forster last season."
"He was one of Australia's best prospects and at 19 was selected for Australia "A" against Ireland in 1994 but didn't play because of exams," said Williams.
A couple of seasons ago, Turner broke a bone in his foot, and suffered a bad infection which sidelined him for over a year. "He's played as I expected him to play after such a lengthy absence," according to Williams, who cited Turner's try and creation of "a beauty" against Bridgend as proof of his talent.
Williams doesn't seem unduly perturbed by his enforced outhalf conundrum, on top of which Brian O'Driscoll's disrupted recuperation from his hamstring tear will almost certainly rule him out of the Connacht game. Aside from Turner, there is, of course, Mark McHugh, who played four games for Leinster at outhalf last season, most notably when kicking all 27 points in the 27-20 win over Leicester, while Girvan Dempsey and Peter McKenna also had runs there on Leinster's tour.
Although 19 of Leinster's players were in recovery work at the start of the season, Williams used all 32 of his travelling party in the opening 29-16 loss to Saracens last Friday week and the 32-20 win over Bridgend last Wednesday, and the 28 still standing for last Saturday's 48-5 defeat to Swansea.
Despite the scorelines and the injury toll, Williams declared himself "very pleased" with the pre-season tour. Regarding it as much as a training camp as a three-match tour Williams was glad it took place away from home. "Playing away from home is a skill. It's hard to learn how to win away from home and to train away from home. You've got to learn how to do it. Half of our games are going to be away from home and it was our away form which undid us in Europe last season. It's something we need to improve on."
As Leinster and the other provinces ease down their preparations this weekend, the club season swings gently into action with abbreviated provincial league programmes kicking off in all the provinces bar Connacht. The seven-club Section A begins a week ahead of the other two sections in Leinster (which will run through the subsequent five Saturdays in September) and each game will be preceded at 1.30 by a senior seconds' shield clash between the respective clubs.
