Glasgow the best of enemies for Leinster as Lions allegiances put on hold

Leinster and Glasgow Warriors have been taking the 'keeping your friends close and your enemies closer' thing to ridiculous levels this season.

Leinster's James Ryan takes a selfie with fans after the win over Glasgow Warriors. Pic: Ben Brady/Inpho

That line about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer? 

Leinster and Glasgow Warriors have been taking that to ridiculous levels this season, and not just because their URC semi-final on Saturday will be their third meeting inside as many months.

The last was a 13-5 win for the Irish province at the Aviva Stadium, the morning after which players from both sides shared a flight over to London for an introductory day with a British and Irish Lions squad that drew 16 from the clubs combined.

Awkward?

“It was a weird dynamic and then we were on the same minibus in,” said James Ryan. “They were sound. I had never really spoken to Scott Cummings and [Sione] Tuipulotu and those lads before. It was in and out. It was a pretty hectic 24 hours, but it was good.” 

There were a few beers had in Richmond that same night as Andy Farrell and his staff went about fostering a bond between players drawn from 15 clubs and four disparate nations, and Ryan makes no bones about his excitement for it.

Barely out of his teens when the Lions toured New Zealand in 2017, he was unlucky to miss out four years later for South Africa. Now aged 28, he got the nod from Andy Farrell despite missing almost four months of the 2025 calendar with injury.

He was nervous about it. For weeks. And the wait was all the worse for the alphabetical order of the announcement with Tadhg Beirne, Ollie Chessum, Scott Cummins, Maro Itoje and Joe McCarthy all revealed before him.

The moment itself? Surreal, he said.

"I was at home. I watched it with my mom and my younger brother. Some of those Lions videos [of the players’ reactions] that you see, like, I thought they were pretty subdued. We went mad, like, because it just means so much.” 

His family will make for Australia for the tour itself. Ryan’s mum Claire travelled to Australia years ago with her cousin Paula. Paula stayed on after meeting an Italian man by the name of Mario Sindone and they have since raised a family in Sydney.

Ryan met them in 2018 when Ireland toured the country. For the man himself, of course, the trip will be overwhelmingly business and that frame of mind holds here and now as he parks the Lions and concentrates on his new pals from Glasgow.

If Leinster’s form has failed to impress lately then Glasgow endured their own spring slump. The 52-0 Champions Cup quarter-final loss to this weekend’s opposition was the low point, their improving form since franked by that eight-point loss on their last trip to Dublin.

“They were a completely different team when they played us a couple of weeks ago versus when they played us in the Champions Cup. I felt in that game when they came to the Aviva a couple of weeks ago, in terms of the ruck and the physical parts of the game, for me it was like Test-match standard. That was the level.

“They had an impressive win again on the weekend against the Stormers. They won’t be the side that came a few weeks ago in the Champions Cup. They’ll be a much better side. I don’t think they’ll fear coming to Dublin. They like going away. You saw when they won a semi over in Limerick last year. Went away and won against the Bulls obviously as well.” 

As for Leinster’s efforts in their own knockout starter against Scarlets? A mixed bag, was Ryan’s take. The problem is that the good they do is being overshadowed more and more by the bad and the indifferent.

Less than 13,000 people turned up for that quarter-final win. The projection for Saturday’s follow-up is hovering in and around the 20,000 mark. The hangover since that Champions Cup defeat to Northampton Saints is obvious on both sides of the white lines.

Concerning?

"I don't think so because in knockout games more often than not things don't go your way because the opposition, they have their own plans and ideas and they've got stuff up their sleeve and they want to put you off.

“You get more out of a win when you have to grind it out than when it comes to easier. It'll be the same this week, they'll have their own plans and it's not gonna be easy. With knockout rugby it's not about, you know, who scores four tries or who plays better.

“It's who wins the game. So if you win it by point, great.”