Cullen wants Ioane to repeat the Jordie Barrett effect

Like Barrett, Ioane is clocking in for a short-term stint at Leinster on the back of a November tour with New Zealand

Tue, 25 Nov, 2025 - 06:59

Brendan O'Brien

Leo Cullen is confident that the imminent arrival of All Black Rieko Ioane can have the same energising effect on the club and its players as that of his Kiwi counterpart Jordie Barrett this time last year.

Like Barrett, Ioane is clocking in for a short-term stint at the province on the back of a November tour with New Zealand. Unlike Barrett, he is not touching down in the best of form.

The 28-year old played his first game of the northern tour against Wales last Saturday and, while he scored one of seven tries early in the second-half, his performance on both sides of the ball wasn’t immense.

Ioane has dropped down the pecking order with Scott Robertson’s All Blacks. His last start was back in September against South Africa and Wales was his first appearance since coming off the bench against Australia in the last round of the Rugby Championship.

A long-time Blues back, Ioane dirtied his bib with the Irish rugby community for his spat with Johnny Sexton at the end of the World Cup quarter-final between the countries in Paris two years ago, but he arrives in Dublin at the week’s end.

“He brings a wealth experience, what, 85-plus caps and 40-odd Test tries? So he's got some decent pedigree,” said Cullen. “We're looking forward to getting him in and just learning. It’ll be a shock to the system for him at this time of the year.

“He’s given up summer in Auckland for a winter in Dublin. He's enthused to get here himself. He was beating the door down to try and get in for the opportunity to come here, which is wonderful to see… So someone that's mad keen to get here and try and learn.”

Leinster fell short of Champions Cup glory last term, the decision to omit Barrett from the ZV for the semi-final loss to Northampton going down as one of the most costly selection errors of all time in the modern game.

But Barrett’s influence on and off the field was huge. The hope is Ioane’s can be the same.

“He was certainly looking at Jordie and seeing how he went about his time here. So we've sort of seen that has worked. Jordie was probably the guinea pig in doing this. I think a lot of our younger players got a hell of a lot from Jordie, and hopefully a lot of our young players will get a lot from Rieko as well.

“Not just young guys, the senior guys as well given how he goes about his preparation, the different challenges that he would have faced over the course of his career as well. Professional rugby is rarely smooth sailing. So just trying to learn from some of those different experiences, invaluable.”

Meanwhile, Ryan Baird is looking at an absence of somewhere between eight and 12 weeks after fracturing his tibia in last Saturday's 24-13 defeat to South Africa. The Six Nations starts 10 weeks from now.

The versatile forward made the No.6 shirt his own during the November window and has now started the last half-dozen for Ireland on the blindside going back to the and including the summer tour to Georgia and Portugal.

“Yeah, I thought he played great,” said Cullen. “That's frustrating for Ryan more than anybody else, very much. Watching him you’re thinking that he’s really kicking on here now. So yeah, it's not a great time for us but it is what it is. No point crying, is there?”

Joe McCarthy sat out the last month, as he has the entire season to date, following a foot injury suffered with the British and Irish Lions last summer, but he is now back training with Leinster and likely to make a competitive return next week against Harlequins.

Leinster are also without Jamie Osborne for up to four months with a shoulder injury suffered in Chicago. Robbie Henshaw and Tommy O’Brien are unavailable for this Friday’s trip to the Dragons due to a hamstring injury and a head knock respectively