Durban — Irish rugby giants Leinster have named a weakened squad to tour South Africa for their United Rugby Championship (URC) matches against the Sharks in Durban on Saturday and the Stormers in Cape Town a week later.
The perennial champions of the URC’s predecessor, the PRO14, Leinster are currently well on top of the table with three rounds to go and have chosen to rest nearly all of their Ireland internationals.
Leinster fielded all of their stars at the weekend in a Champions Cup (formerly the Heineken Cup) match against Connacht and they blew their countrymen away 56-20 to advance to that competitions’ quarter-finals.
Leinster are 10 points clear of second-placed Ulster on the URC log, so are pretty much home and dry as far as home play-offs are concerned and so have decided to box clever and not risk injury to the likes of Johnny Sexton, Jamison Gibson-Park, Garry Ringrose, Robbie Henshaw et al, none of who will play the Sharks and Stormers.
The Irish giants play English club Leicester away in the quarters of the Champions Cup in three weeks' time, the week after they play the Stormers, so it makes sense for them to keep their big guns in Ireland to prepare for that match.
Just front-rankers Ronán Kelleher and Andrew Porter, who were both injured during the Six Nations, are included in the 31-man squad that is on its way to Durban.
Leinster, of course, pride themselves on their squad depth and it is instructive that the 10-point cushion they have is thanks mostly to their second-stringers because their host of Ireland internationals have missed large chunks of the URC because of Six Nations duty.
Head coach Leo Cullen alluded to this when he announced the touring squad.
“Some guys will need a bit of game time over there (in SA) and the big thing is the work that has gone into this — it’s a much wider group,” Cullen told reporters.
“As we know, if you want to stay alive in the two competitions you need a good squad of players and we had some guys with their shoulders to the wheel back in base camp trying to push us up the mountain and carrying the load for all the guys who were away with the national squad.
“Huge credit goes into that group because they’ve done a fantastic job to get us into the situation that we have that bit of a lead, so it’s important to reward some of those guys with some more games as well.
“Those guys are itching to play now,” Cullen said of a young squad captained by loose forward Rhys Ruddock.
But while Leinster can afford to juggle their resources and keep one on the Champions Cup, their opponents over the next fortnight are locked in a fierce battle — along with the Bulls — for the South African Shield, a competition with the larger competition which has the juicy carrot of automatic inclusion into next year’s Champions Cup.
With the three locals team all having three matches each to play, the Stormers are fifth on 47 points, the Sharks are sixth (46) and the Bulls are eighth (43).
The Sharks have probably the toughest run-in, with home games against Leinster and Connacht before a very tough away game to the third Irish team, Ulster, in Belfast.
The Stormers are at home to Glasgow and Leinster and then finish away to the Scarlets in Wales.
While the Bulls are a few points behind in eighth, they look to have the easiest finish. They host Italian team Benetton this week, then Glasgow before travelling to Wales to play the Ospreys.
Leinster squad
Forwards: Ed Byrne, Peter Dooley, Michael Milne, Andrew Porter, Rónan Kelleher, John McKee, James Tracy, Vakh Abdaladze, Michael Ala'alatoa, Thomas Clarkson, Brian Deeny, Jack Dunne, Josh Murphy, Martin Moloney, Rhys Ruddock (capt), Seán O’Brien, Scott Penny, Max Deegan, Alex Soroka.
Backs: Cormac Foley, Nick McCarthy, Harry Byrne, David Hawkshaw, Tommy O'Brien, Rob Russell, Ciarán Frawley, Rory O’Loughlin, Jamie Osborne, Adam Byrne, Chris Cosgrave, Max O’Reilly.
IOL Sport