Friends become foes in showdown at the Aviva

Injury updates aren’t always worth the paper they are printed on but the absence of Jordan Larmour’s and Jacob Stockdale’s names from this week’s Leinster and Ulster updates allows us a few days to contemplate a potentially exhilarating tete-a-tete. Two of the most exciting young wingers in the world game, the pair have been more accustomed to teaming up with Ireland in recent times and they may well come face to face when their provinces contest a Heineken Champions Cup quarter-final in Dublin this weekend.

They bring different attributes to the table. Stockdale, the older by over a year, has seven or so inches and somewhere close to two stone on the man who is a good bet to patrol the same tramline this week given Rob Kearney’s return to full health at full-back during the Six Nations.