Leinster remain hopeful that out-halves Johnny Sexton and Ross Byrne will be available for Friday's Heineken Champions Cup last-16 clash with Toulon.

Both players are hoping to overcome knocks, with Harry Byrne probably in line to take the 10 jersey against the French giants if they don't.

Ireland captain Sexton is going through the return to play protocols after being removed for a head-injury assessment minutes after coming on as a second-half replacement in Leinster's Guinness Pro14 final win over Munster at the RDS on Saturday, while Ross Byrne, who scored 11 of Leinster's 16 points in Saturday's final, took a knock to the knee.

While Byrne took part in today's training session, Sexton, who missed Ireland's Six Nations match against France last month after failing to recover from a head injury suffered against Wales the week before, sat it out.

Leinster senior coach Stuart Lancaster, however, is confident both will have fully recovered by Friday.

"Johnny is fine," Lancaster said. "He is flying through the HIA protocols. Ross got a bang on his knee, but he trained today. We are pretty optimistic about both of them."

Harry Byrne (21) has been the third-choice out-half of late while Ciaran Frawley took the kicks at goal from centre in the recent defeat to the Ospreys.

The province said that Cian Kelleher has recovered from a hamstring injury and will  train this week but the 2018 European champions remain without a large number of players, including: Scott Penny (hand), Jimmy O'Brien (hamstring), Garry Ringrose (ankle), Will Connors (knee), James Ryan (concussion), Rowan Osborne (hand), Tommy O'Brien (ankle), Adam Byrne (quad), Caelan Doris (concussion), Dan Leavy (knee), Conor O’Brien (knee) and Max Deegan (knee).

Follow Leinster v Toulon (5.30pm, Friday) and Munster v Toulouse (3pm, Saturday) in Champions Cup action via our live blogs on RTE.ie and the RTÉ News app or listen live on RTÉ 2fm's Game On and RTÉ Radio 1's Saturday Sport