Leinster gamble on Aironi outing

LEINSTER coach Joe Schmidt admitted that, with the Heineken Cup semi-final 10 days away, he is prepared to gamble with his team selection for Saturday’s Magners League trip away to Aironi.

The Kiwi made seven changes from the side that defeated Leicester in the European quarter-final for last weekend’s RDS date with Ulster, and was vindicated with an eight-point win that was much more comfortable than the scoreline suggested. That victory left the province in the driving seat in the race to claim the all-important second spot in the Magners League and a home semi-final berth with two games against the rock-bottom Italians and third-from-bottom Glasgow left.

Six frontline players — Brian O’Driscoll, Gordon D’Arcy, Leo Cullen, Jamie Heaslip, Sean O’Brien and Kevin McLaughlin — did not train yesterday although there are no major injury concerns and decisions will be made on who will travel and who will rest later in the week.

“Injury will determine that,” said Schmidt. “There’s guys you would have seen training today but they did not do any contact, because they are not contact-ready. For us that will determine to a large degree who gets selected this weekend. We’d like to give a few guys a run. Cian Healy wasn’t too tired after his three minutes in the back-row last weekend so if you were a betting man, you’d figure he’d start. It is about balancing up the game time and making sure guys are kept fresh at the same time.”

As things stand, Leinster require nine points from their last two dates to seal that second-place finish but Aironi may not be the expected walkover despite their lowly status as they defeated Connacht at home and gave Munster a good run for their money there too.

“It’s a banana skin, Aironi. The danger with there being 50 competition points between us on the table is that there is a little bit of complacency. We have trained hard and that is testament to what we believe is going to be a tough test.”

Leinster had just five points to spare when the sides met at the RDS in February when both were operating without a raft of internationals, although it is Schmidt’s first Magners trip to Italy which perhaps serves as the greatest hazard light this week. That was last September when the province’s new coach suffered an embarrassing 16-point loss at the hands of Treviso but Schmidt waves away the significance of that afternoon.

“It is a world away from were we are now,” he said, “We have moved on and I don’t look too far back at those sort of incidents. It is more relevant to look at our last Aironi game and take a bit of warning from that and heed the fact they got so close.”

Leinster’s fixtures kicks off at 2.30pm Italian time on Saturday, one hour before Toulouse play host to Bourgoin in the Top 14, which means Schmidt will be deprived a close-up of the reigning Heineken champions prior to their clash at the Aviva. He portrayed that as a plus. “I managed to get a look at Leicester playing Bath and I don’t think it was that productive. It just made us that bit more scared of Leicester as they gave Bath their biggest hiding ever on at home.”