Leinster follow Ireland in delving deep into loosehead stocks

Six days on from their helter skelter victory over Edinburgh, Leinster face Sale in the Champions Cup quarter-finals

Alex Usanov won't be 21 until July but he will start at loosehead prop for Leinster in their Champions Cup quarter-final against Sale. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

Stocks in fit looseheads are through the roof in Irish rugby.

Andy Farrell’s Ireland team had to negotiate an entire Six Nations without their three leading exponents with Andrew Porter sidelined for the duration and both Paddy McCarthy and Jack Boyle confined to the casualty ward for even longer.

Jeremy Loughman and Michael Milne stepped up for their opener in Paris. Then Tom O’Toole was asked to migrate over from the tighthead side to add to the options. If tightheads are said to be worth their weight in gold, then how valuable must O’Toole be now?

Anyway, we digress.

Porter has since returned, but now he’s out again. A chest injury suffered in last week’s Champions Cup defeat of Edinburgh leaves him sitting this quarter-final against Sale out and McCarthy and Boyle are still out so… Alex Usanov won’t be 21 until July. That’s almost painfully young for a prop but he spent two years with the Ireland U20s and he was hugely impressive when called up late to the Emerging Ireland squad that toured South Africa as far back as October 2024.

Leo Cullen describes a physical, dynamic player and much of that is down to a versatile sporting background. He was an All-Ireland judo champion in 2018 and ’19, there was a silver medal in jiu-jitsu in a European Championship and he is a national shot put champion.

Integrating players from that level into a senior provincial collective isn’t always straightforward. Injury brought progress to a temporary halt at one point but the graph has continued to rise for the most part.

This will be his first Champions Cup start.

"It's always balancing the physical and the game understanding, the mental awareness and sharpness of that development part of a young player,” said Cullen, his head coach. “There's no exact timeline, is there, for any of these things.

"Again, with a front-row player he has to be physically developed to be strong enough to play in the front row. He is that, he's incredibly strong and powerful. He's been on the radar for a long time. Coming through Belvedere people have been talking about him.

"It's great to see him come through, he's still an incredibly young man.” 

Usanov will be backed up from the bench by Jerry Cahir who was signed to a short-term deal at the start of the season at the age of 25 after a number of impressive seasons playing AIL with Dublin University and Lansdowne.

“You've all seen Jerry's story. It's brilliant, for the two of them it's great. We try to plan and make sure we keep these guys integrated all the time, if the need arises, and Andrew Porter goes down. Are we ready for what's next?

“Thankfully, these guys are because they've done a tonne of work and hopefully you see that now.” 

Alex Usanov's potential has been spoken of since his days playing for Belvedere College. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Leinster aren’t alone in having to rejig things, in the front row and elsewhere.

England’s Luke Cowan-Dickie is out for Sale, so is another hooker in the suspended Nathan Jibulu. Bevan Rodd, another England man, is unavailable at loosehead too while the two Curry brothers, Tom and Ben, aren’t options for the back row either.

Leinster go without Porter and captain Caelan Doris who is going through return-to-play protocols after experiencing concussive symptoms in the wake of the Edinburgh game but Garry Ringrose, James Ryan and Ronan Kelleher are all involved again.

There are positional changes in there too. Rieko Ioane switches to wing in place of Jimmy O’Brien, Jack Conan moves to No.8 and Ryan Baird slides across from lock to the blindside. There are tweaks to the bench too, though still no Sam Prendergast.

“The six-day turnaround obviously makes life a bit more challenging sometimes as well. But it’s good on the positive side to have guys come back in fresh, very, very experienced guys, specifically James, Garry and even Ronan then as well.” 

Leinster should win this one with less fuss than last week when the concession of three intercept tries kept the Scots in the game for far too long. Sale’s absences will hurt them far more than Leinster’s should given the respective rosters.

Sale have won just two of their eight games played in 2026 but head coach Alex Sanderson has highlighted their underdog, us-against-the-world mentality and praised George Ford’s score building abilities. He kicked 16 of their 26 points against Harlequins last week.

Plenty has been said about their ‘northern physicality’ and Cullen touched on the need to be ready if large parts of the game are spent in the air or in the trenches. It’s hard to see the hosts lose regardless of style.

“We’ve watched tons of their games the last couple of seasons. There's a lot of experienced players in their team, a strong South African flavour as well, and guys that we know to be physically confrontational and direct and will attack our defense.

“So yeah, that's a good challenge. Listen, that's what you expect, isn't it? You're in a quarter-final of the premier competition with all the best teams, so it's a great place to be.”