Leinster need to tame Tigers pack to progress

SHANE HORGAN makes his return to competitive rugby for Leinster’s Heineken Cup quarter-final against Leicester Tigers at Lansdowne Road this evening.

Horgan, Europe’s top try scorer (with seven), resumes his place on the right wing having recovered from a thumb injury which ruled him out of the latter stages of the Six Nations.

However, his international teammate Gordon D’Arcy will not start, but is named amongst the replacements by coach Declan Kidney

Kidney deliberated long and hard on whether to risk the Wexford man, who has shaken off his nagging hamstring injury. The fact that he has only had 40 minutes game-time since limping out of the Ireland-Italy game in Rome in early February proved decisive. D’Arcy’s inside centre role goes to Felipe Contepomi.

Though their disappointment was readily understandable, Victor Costello and Shane Jennings didn’t go down Austin Healy’s route after both were omitted from the hosts’ starting line-up with Keith Gleeson and Ciaran Potts the players to benefit.

Healy has never been one to bite his tongue so when John Wells, the Tigers coach, dropped him for today’s clash, he made his views known both forcibly and publicly.

Having recently announced his intention to retire at the end of the season, Costello was desperate to make his presence felt in what is regarded as the most important match Leinster have played. Jennings for his part has had a great campaign so he, too, was bitterly disappointed at being usurped by the fit again Gleeson.

The chances are, of course, that Kidney will introduce both Costello and Jennings as impact substitutes. In many ways, their demotion is indicative of the strength in depth available to Kidney who has kept faith with Ricky Nebbett at tight head ahead of Emmett Byrne.

Everybody associated with the Leinster squad accepts that the forward battle provides the key to this intriguing encounter. Home ground advantage won’t mean a great deal if the Leinster pack allows itself to be pushed around the place much as it was in the semi-final flop against Perpignan at Lansdowne Road in 2003.

Perhaps, but the consensus around Leinster seems to be that they won’t be able to control a pack containing players of the status of Martin Johnson and Neil Back, not to mention scrummager Julian White at tight head, Graham Rowntree at loose head and Martin Corry at number eight.

Nor are Leicester short of keymen at half-back where Harry Ellis and Andy Goode did them proud in the pool matches against teams of the quality of Wasps and Biarritz.

Further out the line, the placing of Geordan Murphy on the wing to the exclusion of the disgruntled Healy is probably indicative of the Irishman’s poor run of form in the Six Nations, but he is a class act who is always capable of turning a game with one piece of brilliance. Naturally, Brian O’Driscoll, Horgan and Girvan Dempsey are well aware of that fact and will keep a close eye on Murphy while the ardent hope is that New Zealander David Holwell will maintain his outstanding form of the campaign so far.

At the end of the day, though, the outcome will be decided by the forward battle. If Leinster front up, then it will be their day simply because they have players of the class and quality of O’Driscoll, Holwell, Horgan and Denis Hickie to turn the possession into the all-important scores. If not, there will be no stopping Johnson, Back and their pack of Tigers. Away wins at this stage of the Heineken Cup are relatively rare but I suspect this will be one such occasion.