Leinster may welcome O'Driscoll back for Northampton game

Brian O'Driscoll could make a sooner-than-expected return to the Leinster fold this weekend.

The news comes ahead of their big Heineken European Cup pool game away at Northampton on Saturday.

The former Irish and Leinster captain missed the week-end’s win over Scarlets at the RDS with a suspected concussion he suffered while on international duty for Ireland against the All Blacks.

The Leinster squad trained today in UCD ahead of their European game, with Brian taking a light part in the session.

Speaking before training today, Leinster’s scrum coach, Greg Feek says management are very optimistic about O’Driscoll’s fitness.

He said: "Today he’s back running around, we will continue to follow the proper protocols in terms of his recovery and see how it goes but at the moment we are reasonably optimistic about how he’s looking and hopefully he gets a run out."

Meanwhile, the three-time Heineken Cup Champions are generally reporting a clean bill of health with no fresh injury concerns from the win over Scarlets in the Pro 12 at the weekend.

Feek said: "We’re not looking too bad at the minute, a few things have cropped up this morning which we will know more about tomorrow, but when I say things aren’t too bad, they generally are not too bad.

"Some of the guys that came off at the weekend were a little bit precautionary, rather than take the chance, we had guys on the bench that could come on and do the job so all good really."

Martin Moore was substituted during the first half of the win over Scarlets after experiencing some discomfort when he was winded from the scrum which reaped a penalty try.

That is not expected to affect the tight-head prop's involvement in training this week, while centre Gordon D'Arcy was replaced as a precaution and will also be available ahead of Friday's midday team announcement.

Ireland internationals Isaac Boss, Cian Healy, Jamie Heaslip, Dave Kearney, Rob Kearney, Kevin McLaughlin, Sean O'Brien, Brian O'Driscoll and Devin Toner have re-joined the squad.

Following his 11-point haul in the RDS at the weekend, out-half Ian Madigan now lies 10 points shy of the 400-point career milestone for the province in his 88 games to date.

Jack McGrath is now three caps short of the 50-cap landmark and after Saturday has now scored three times in his nine appearances to date this season.