Josh van der Flier back in contention after injury nightmare

By Ciarán Ó Raghallaigh

Josh van der Flier’s six month injury absence could come to an end this weekend, as Leinster revealed the flanker is available for selection for the Guinness PRO14 clash with Scarlets.

Van der Flier, 25, has not played since rupturing his cruciate ligament in Ireland’s Six Nations opener against France in Paris last February.

Dan Leavy stepped in and filled his boots with style for the rest of the season, but now the back row forward is back and raring to go ahead of a huge season for club and country.

“He’s available for selection,” said John Fogarty, the Leinster assistant coach. “He’s in the rugby programme now, he’s in there, which is great for Ireland and for us.

He’s up for selection, so it’s becoming difficult now to select teams and that’s what we want, a fella like Josh to come back in now and be competitive. There’s a number of guys that will come back into the programme and they’ll be up for selection this week.

Jack Conan has also returned to training this week, as Leo Cullen’s back row options improve considerably, following Caelen Doris’ first start in Cardiff last Friday night. With Rhys Ruddock, Seán O’Brien, Max Deegan, Josh Murphy and even Scott Fardy an option, it remains one of the most competitive areas of the field for the European champions.

“When you’re injured you’re out the gap,” Fogarty said, “things move on so fast and the quality that is there now at the moment, in this place and in every other province, they’re turning out good performances and that’s key.

It’s being able to be back, be healthy and consistently perform. And that’s something that Josh did really, really well prior to his injury, and he needs to do again, because all the rest of them are performing consistently.

"It’s a great headache for Ireland to have right now - and for us.” Fogarty is demanding a better performance from Leinster this weekend, as they return to Wales for a second successive away trip – with Scarlets the familiar opposition. The two sides met four times last season, including two clashes at Aviva Stadium in the Champions Cup semi-final and the PRO14 Grand final, with Leinster coming out top in both knockout games.

The Welsh region lost to Ulster last Saturday, with John Cooney kicking a late penalty to seal victory, and lost two outhalves to injury during the game, as well as Jon Davies in the warmup.

“There’s going to be an edge to that game, we played them four times last year so it’s going to be tough,” he said.

“That was a tough game to lose [in Belfast] for them, they did a lot of good things in the game. But when we’re away from home discipline is going to be very important, that we’re not putting ourselves under pressure and if we are – can we react in the right way?

“They present a big wall of 14, so there’ll be space for us to kick – we need to be smart with our kicks and bring a nice varied attack.

“It’s going to be tough, but the lads are really aware of it. They’re really well coached and have a good squad.”