Cullen trusts youngsters to perform

Leinster forwards coach Leo Cullen has no qualms about putting the province’s youngsters up against Northampton Saints at Franklin’s Gardens today.

Coach Matt O’Connor has named a largely academy side, backed by the experienced half-back pairing of Isaac Boss and Jimmy Gopperth, for today’s pre-season game.

Cullen wants the youngsters to show they can represent Leinster at this level.

“Any young kid who has come through that academy system and into the team is at a pretty outstanding level and that is testament to the work that goes on underneath that through the schools and the youths,” he said.

“With the quality of player that we are getting through and the work that Girvan [Dempsey] and the others in the academy do those players are coming through and are generally ready to roll.

“A lot of the academy guys train with us and some of them will get opportunities this weekend due to the fact that we have so many guys unavailable..

“[Northampton] are always a little bit ahead of us in their development. I played over there myself two years ago and we took a pretty heavy defeat but the result is not really that relevant for us. It’s about how guys cope and handle the pressures against those quality players.

“That will bring us on then to the game next week against Ulster and we’ll have a few guys back in the mix. That’s when you start to string together a better picture for the opening game against Glasgow the following week. So, we have a tough few weeks ahead of us.”

LEINSTER: B Dardis, D Fanning, B Macken, J Coghlan, S Coghlan-Murray, J Gopperth, I Boss; M Bent, B Byrne, T Furlong, B Marshall, T Denton, J Van Der Flier, D Leavy, D Ryan.

Replacements: T Moran, S McCarthy, E Byrne, G Thornbury, J Slattery, L McGrath, C Marsh, A Byrne, N McCarthy, S Crosbie, R O’Loughlin, M McGrath, C Kelleher.