Cullen confident he has struck right balance with Leinster's Champions Cup final matchday 23

'I think we have a good balance there,' Leo Cullen said on Friday following his squad’s captain’s run press conference at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

'GOOD BALANCE': Head coach Leo Cullen and senior coach Jacques Nienaber during a Leinster Rugby captain's run. Pic: Harry Murphy, Sportsfile

Leinster boss Leo Cullen believes he has struck a good balance throughout his matchday squad for Saturday’s Champions Cup final showdown with Toulouse.

Cullen, looking to win his second European title as a head coach having lifted the trophy three times as Leinster captain in 2009, 2011, and 2012, on Friday selected the same starting line-up that ended La Rochelle’s bid for a third Champions Cup in a row at the quarter-final stage last month, restoring fit-again Will Connors and Hugo Keenan at flanker and full-back respectively, while adding Jason Jenkins to the second row.

He also welcomes back the province’s co-captain James Ryan on an experienced bench featuring six forwards and two backs, a switch-up from the five-three replacements split he deployed in the semi-final victory over Northampton Saints at Croke Park on May 4.

Connors, Jenkins, and Keenan are the three changes to the starting line-up which secured progress to a third final in a row and gave Leinster another shot at a first Champions Cup success since 2018.

Ryan’s inclusion among the walk-on players sees Jenkins promoted to the XV as Ross Molony, a starting lock alongside Joe McCarthy in the Saints victory, drops out of Cullen’s matchday 23.

Also making way from the bench is Jimmy O’Brien, the outside-back replacement from the Croke Park game, with Ciaran Frawley vacating the 15 jersey for Keenan and covering fly-half, full-back and inside centre while starting scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park will be expected to cover the wing if either James Lowe or Jordan Larmour are removed as Luke McGrath is named the back-up number nine.

Connors’ inclusion at openside flanker means Josh van der Flier moves to the bench as a second back-row replacement alongside Jack Conan and the head coach is satisfied his starting pack and six replacement forwards can match Toulouse’s physical firepower.

"I think we have a good balance there,” Cullen said on Friday following his squad’s captain’s run press conference at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which is expected to host around 20,000 Leinster supporters among a sell-out, 60,000-plus crowd on Saturday.

“Hugo got through the game last week, so did James, great to have James back and I know he's on the bench. But from some of the experiences we've had, we need to make sure we've got that level of experience coming off the bench and James has been great in the way he's gone about the week. 

"Listen, we need him there on the field to help us win the game at the end. The combination of Jason and Joe, we've seen that before. Ross Molony in that instance is incredibly unlucky because he's been brilliant for the team over the course of the season and in previous seasons as well.

"There's been a few of those conversations this week with a few of those guys who are incredibly unlucky to miss out but we still think we've got a strong 23 there who will hopefully represent everybody well.

"Some tight calls in terms of the team but that's the nature of the competitive squad we have."

Cullen believes Leinster are ready to ditch any emotional baggage lingering from back-to-back final defeats to La Rochelle while also hinting Toulouse may still be carrying some of their after successive semi-final losses to his side in Dublin.

"The players have been through unbelievable experiences and everyone has different levels of experience so I'm trying to think who would be the eldest player. Like say, Cian (Healy) is probably the most experienced and has been through so much but then you have a Jamie Osborne on the other end of that. Less experienced but he has been immense during this sequence of knock-out games in particular but we've seen that in games and training for the last number of seasons.

"Everyone has a slightly different lens but the group overall has accumulated amazing experience. Some of it is character building, as painful as it is, so we've got some strong characters in the group now that really perform on this type of stage and that's ultimately what you want.

“You want to go through these experiences, yeah you'd love it if it was all plain sailing and you're winning games. We were sitting at the end of a Champions Cup final last season and you have to pick yourself up and go again. You see the draw when it gets announced, first up is La Rochelle away and that's how you start planning the season.

“To get through all the steps we've got through and I'm listening to some of Toulouse's piece and how they've lost in the semi-final against us last year in the Aviva, so they have a similar type of disappointment I guess. So they have to navigate their way through.

"There's a hell of a lot of excellent teams who are not here. Everyone wants to be involved in this weekend because it's Champions Cup. All the champions teams are pitted against each other, so we're up against one of the great teams of the competition in Toulouse and it's a privilege here. Now it's about the group performing and delivering the best version of themselves. 

"We think they've prepared well so hopefully we see that in terms of the performance tomorrow. Hopefully, we'll have an amazing crowd here and it will be a great occasion for rugby, for rugby in the Northern Hemisphere."