Leo Cullen hopeful Tadhg Furlong will feature at some stage of Six Nations

FINAL FURLONG: Ireland’s Tadhg Furlong before the game. Pic Credit: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan.

Leinster head coach Leo Cullen believes Tadhg Furlong is “getting closer” to full fitness and remains hopeful that the tighthead prop will feature for Ireland before the end of the Six Nations.

Furlong has missed the opening wins over England and Scotland with a calf problem that is part of the reason for playing only 48 minutes of rugby, against La Rochelle in mid-January, in the last four months.

He has now missed Ireland’s last six games but Cullen confirmed he is back on deck with Leinster, “training, rehabbing away” and “not a million miles away” from a return to competitive action.

“I’m not sure what [Ireland’s] plan will be, whether they’ll get him for Wales or leave him for another couple of weeks after that, but hopefully he’s feature before the end of the Six Nations definitely, yeah."

Half-a-dozen other Ireland players will hope to push for game time against Wales in the Millennium Stadium in two weeks by getting the nod to play with Leinster away to the Ospreys in the URC this Friday evening.

Jack Boyle, Joe McCarthy, Gus McCarthy, Ciaran Frawley, Jamie Osborne and Jimmy O’Brien all trained with their province in UCD on Monday. Hugh Cooney, who had spent time with Ireland pre-Six Nations in Portugal has been back on site since last week.

Simon Easterby’s squad is enjoying a few well-earned rest days having followed up an opening Championship defeat of England with a comprehensive defeat of Scotland in Edinburgh on Sunday.

However, the national side will reconvene for a mini-camp in Dublin later this week and it remains to be seen if any of the players that played no part in Murrayfield are needed to stay on for international duties.

“So, it’s a little bit of wait and see because the Ireland game was only yesterday,” said Leinster head coach Leo Cullen.

“Ireland will have a get-together later this week and they will keep a certain amount of players and who they don’t need will hopefully feature with us. As the week goes on that will become clearer.”

Rabah Slimani is another back on board having travelled to France’s first two Championship games as a 24th man but Jordan Larmour remains sidelined and will likely remain so until Leinster’s URC trip to South Africa towards the end of March.

RG Snyman and Jordie were given time off last week in view of their busy schedules this last year but are both back in situ for the game against the Ospreys.