LEINSTER COACH JOE SCHMIDT is placing his trust in a youthful squad as he looks to arrest the province’s three-game losing run.
Shane Jennings leads a young squad for the visit of Connacht with six of the starting XV aged 23 or under.
10 of the players named in the match-day squad featured in Leinster A’s 44-13 British and Irish Cup win over Jersey two weeks ago.
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The openside flanker is one of six Ireland internationals in the starting line up. Amongst them is Fergus McFadden who starts on the right wing in a back three alongside Fionn Carr and full-back Andrew Conway.
Ian Madigan lies in third place in the league’s points scorers list so far – 74 points from 11 Pro12 games – but had a poor kicking game in last week’s 27-19 defeat to Ulster. He will pair up with Isaac Boss at half back.
In the pack, Heinke van der Merwe is named in the front row alongside Aaron Dundon and Ireland prop Michael Bent, with Devin Toner partnering Ben Marshall at second row. Marshall will make his fifth appearance for the province.
Losing run
Leinster lost twice in succession to Clermont Auvergne in the Heineken Cup before succumbing to Ulster, and their powerful pack, at Ravenhill on 22 December.
Connacht lost 16-12 to Munster last Saturday but defeated Leinster 34-6 at the Sporstground in September and will be keen to inflict some damage after it emerged their lock, Mike McCarthy would be joining the European champions in the summer.
Luke Fitzgerald and Eoin O’Malley were hoping to feature in the squad but the comeback dates have been pushed back again.
Leinster: A Conway; F McFadden, B Macken, A Goodman, F Carr; I Madigan, I Boss; H van der Merwe, A Dundon, M Bent, B Marshall, D Toner, R Ruddock, S Jennings (c), J Murphy.
Replacements: S Cronin, J McGrath, M Ross, L Cullen, D Ryan, J Cooney, N Reid, A Byrne.
*The game kicks off at 7:45pm and TheScore.ie will be at the RDS for liveblog coverage from 7:15pm.
The verbal agreement is to play the Irish players in one inter-pro over the holidays and rest them for the other. There are 13 players in the November squads in Pro12 action tomorrow.
I don’t think so, the agreement is a certain amount of gametime in the year, obviously Leinster and Ulster have chosen this weekend. Anyone involved tomorrow are mainly squad, other than Ross and Murray who have obviously been given dispensation.
The likes of McCarthy, Ryan, SOB, Darcy, Sexton, Heaslip, Strauss, Healy, Earls, are all not involved.
The issue I have is that the headline intimates that it’s Leinster’s choice to ‘rest’ a load of players, which is patently not true.
Anyone could have told you that the team this week would be a lot weaker than last.
Well that depends on your definition of ‘chosen’, which is obviously different to mine! Schmidt very rarely puts someone who hasn’t trained fully in the week into the starting 15 also.
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Rest?! There’s an Irish squad camp on in Carlton House this week, they aren’t ‘resting’ anyone Patrick.
The verbal agreement is to play the Irish players in one inter-pro over the holidays and rest them for the other. There are 13 players in the November squads in Pro12 action tomorrow.
Fight ! Fight ! Fight !
Not a fight, I just take exception to the way things can be phrased by The Score guys sometimes! This in particular is misleading I think.
I don’t think so, the agreement is a certain amount of gametime in the year, obviously Leinster and Ulster have chosen this weekend. Anyone involved tomorrow are mainly squad, other than Ross and Murray who have obviously been given dispensation.
The likes of McCarthy, Ryan, SOB, Darcy, Sexton, Heaslip, Strauss, Healy, Earls, are all not involved.
The issue I have is that the headline intimates that it’s Leinster’s choice to ‘rest’ a load of players, which is patently not true.
Anyone could have told you that the team this week would be a lot weaker than last.
So they’ve ‘chosen’ to rest players this weekend. As for predicting a weakened team – we did that on Xmas Eve: http://thescore.thejournal.ie/leinster-connacht-interprovincial-rugby-728890-Dec2012/
Well that depends on your definition of ‘chosen’, which is obviously different to mine! Schmidt very rarely puts someone who hasn’t trained fully in the week into the starting 15 also.