Leinster Rugby vs Montpellier Herault
Heineken Champions Cup - Pool A
RDS Arena, Dublin
Sunday, 16th January 2022, 13:00
TV: Live: BT Sports
So we're back...again...hopefully?
In this most bewildering of seasons, Leinster are coming off their second five week break of the season. This time it was down to multiple URC postponements and the controversial cancellation of the away leg of this fixture. Leinster made noise about appealing but the ERC was never going to change their mind simply because if they did it for one team, all the other teams would come calling. And now that the round 2 fixtures that couldn't be played due to France/UK travel restrictions have been cancelled and declared 0-0 draws, the competition has taken on a farcical tone.
Still though, because of the structure of the competition a win on Sunday should be enough to realistically get into the last sixteen. One of the benefits of another long break is that a lot of injured players have had time to regain fitness. Match fitness is another thing though, especially in what is meant to be the middle of the season.
In any case Johnny Sexton is back but has to be content with a place on the bench as James Ryan captains the team from the second row. The pack is almost the full strength Ireland pack with Andrew Porter, Ronan Kelleher and Tadhg Furlong in the front row and Caelan Doris, Josh van der Flier and Jack Conan in the back row. Ross Molony is chosen to partner Ryan in the second row. Ross Byrne and Jamison Gibson-Park are the starting half-backs and Ciaran Frawley and Garry Ringrose are the centres. Hugo Keenan, Jordan Larmour and Jimmy O'Brien are the back three with James Lowe named on the bench.
Montpellier have been riddled with Covid-19 themselves and have only played one Top14 game since the match against Leinster was postponed. But they are supposedly travelling at the time of writing at least so we'll see. An understrength team has been named with the most recognisable names being the front row of Mikheil Nariashvili, skipper Guilhem Guirado and England International Henry Thomas. Former Leinster underge player Karl Martin will make his debut for Montpellier after being named in the centre.
The bookies have Leinster at something like 40-1 on to win this game so it shouldn't be much of a contest.
| Leinster Rugby | Montpellier Herault |
||
|---|---|---|---|
| Teams | Hugo Keenan | 15 | Axel Bevia |
| Jordan Larmour | 14 | Pierre Lucas | |
| Garry Ringrose | 13 | Thomas Darmon | |
| Ciaran Frawley | 12 | Karl Martin | |
| Jimmy O'Brien | 11 | Josua Vici | |
| Ross Byrne | 10 | Louis Foursans | |
| Jamison Gibson-Park | 9 | Gela Aprasidze | |
| Andrew Porter | 1 | Mikheil Nariashvili | |
| Ronan Kelleher | 2 | Guilhem Guirado (C) | |
| Tadhg Furlong | 3 | Henry Thomas | |
| Ross Molony | 4 | Tyler Duguid | |
| James Ryan (C) | 5 | Mickael Capelli | |
| Caelan Doris | 6 | Masivesi Dakuwaqa | |
| Josh van der Flier | 7 | Florian Verhaeghe | |
| Jack Conan | 8 | Marco Tauleigne | |
| Replacements | Dan Sheehan | 16 | Vincent Giudicelli |
| Cian Healy | 17 | Robert Rodgers | |
| Michael Ala'alatoa | 18 | Titi Lamositele | |
| Rhys Ruddock | 19 | Alexandre Becognee | |
| Max Deegan | 20 | Aubin Eymeri | |
| Luke McGrath | 21 | Paul Vallee | |
| Johnny Sexton | 22 | Nico Janse van Rensburg | |
| James Lowe | 23 | Zach Mercer | |
| Not Considered
due to Injury |
Dave Kearney, Michael Milne, Conor O'Brien, Will Connors, Dan Leavy |
||
| Officials | Referee: Wayne Barnes (RFU) | ||
by Jim O'Connor, © 2022-01-14
