Cheika hopeful on O’Driscoll recovery

BRIAN O’DRISCOLL is battling to be fit for Leinster’s assault on another Heineken Cup title when they meet Clermont Auvergne in the quarter-final on April 9.

The Irish captain is undergoing intensive treatment on a medial ligament strain sustained in the Triple Crown defeat by Scotland and will miss both Saturday’s Magners League game with Connacht at the RDS (4.30pm) and the Good Friday clash with arch rivals Munster.

That leaves Leinster coach Michael Cheika praying for successful medical intervention as O’Driscoll joined a serious list of walking wounded within the squad.

Gordon D’Arcy (groin), Shane Horgan (foot), Kevin McLaughlin (shoulder), Nathan Hines (knee) and Shaun Berne (Achilles tendon) are all at various stages of treatment and recovery, and Cheika admitted yesterday: “We have a real situation. It might not be particularly drastic in that these things happen in professional sport, but it will be all hands on deck to get recovery right in the next couple of weeks.

“In Brian’s situation, and we’re hopeful, not only does he have to recover but he also needs to get fuelled up again to be ready for the upcoming challenges. We’re targeting the Clermont Auvergne game for his return. We have a good team of medical staff, we would be pretty confident he will be there, there are definitely no negatives about it. We will take it a step at a time but we’re working backwards from that match for him.”

The coach identified Horgan and Hines as the next most worrying casualties. “It has been difficult to find the cause of Shane’s pain. We now have a handle on it so I know he will be missing this week but hope to have him back in the saddle within two weeks after that.

“Still, that could be a bit of an issue because he hasn’t played in a while, so we need to know he has the required preparation under his belt before we can unleash him into a match situation. It would be pretty important for him to play next week (against Munster). Nathan’s injury is just not quite clear-cut in terms of what’s causing it.

“McLaughlin is not too bad. He has had a massive amount of work over the last few weeks so this would probably have been a rest weekend for him anyway. He has been training with Ireland, doing both workloads, but our situation is a bit delicate because we’re not sure about Nathan either,” he said.

Cheika said D’Arcy has a reasonable chance of making it back in time for the game against arch-rivals Munster. “Yes, in his case we would be hopeful. He wouldn’t have played this week anyway, fit or not, so it gives him a bit of time to get it right and we’ll wait until the middle of next week to make a call.”

LEINSTER (v Connacht, from): Forwards: L. Cullen, J. Fogarty, N. Hines, T. Hogan, B. Jackman, S. Jennings, Stephen Keogh, R. McCormack, M. O’Kelly, M. Ross, R. Ruddock, P. Ryan, E. Sheriff, R. Strauss, D. Toner, CJ van der Linde, S. Wright.

Backs: S. Berne, A. Conway, G. Dempsey, C. Keane, D. Kearney, R. Kearney, M. Keating, Simon Keogh, I. Madigan, F. McFadden, I. Nacewa, P. O’Donohue, E. O’Malley, E. Reddan, J. Sexton.