Leinster coach Leo Cullen believes Harry Byrne has a "great opportunity" to show what he's capable of, with Byrne set to start at out-half for the province in their Investec Champions Cup Pool 4 meeting with Leicester Tigers on Saturday.
The Leinster 10 jersey has been thrown around like a hot potato this season following the retirement of Johnny Sexton, with Harry and Ross Byrne, as well as Ciarán Frawley and Sam Prendergast all having started multiple games each at out-half.
That lack of cohesion has been dictated more by injury than a lack of clarity by the Leinster coach, who has seen the Byrne brothers and Frawley pick up in-game injuries.
Ross suffered an arm injury in their November win against Munster and hasn't featured since, while Harry picked up a concussion during the first half of their opening Champions Cup win at La Rochelle.
The younger of the Byrne brothers missed last week's win over Stade Francais with an ankle injury, with Frawley also getting injured in that game, getting a bang on the ribs which hasn't fully healed.
Luckily for Cullen, Harry's ankle injury wasn't a major issue, and he's been strapped up and brought back in for a seventh start of the season, giving him one last chance to catch the eye of Andy Farrell ahead of the Six Nations break.
"Harry has come back in and trained Thursday and will start, so it's a great opportunity for him after the disappointment of missing last week. Hopefully he goes well," Cullen said, after naming Byrne in his team to face the Leicester Tigers at Welford Road.
"Yeah, we've had an interesting couple of weeks with the 10s. Harry was unlucky after training for the majority of the week last week, he picked up an injury which meant Ciarán and Sam [Prendergast] got their opportunity.
"Ciarán went off during the game [against Stade Francais], we thought he would be OK this week, but he hasn't managed to come through the week after training at the start of the week. It's a bit of a role-reversal."
It's the third year in a row the sides have met in the competition, Leinster beating the Tigers in the quarter-final in both 2022 and 2023. With Richard Wigglesworth having moved on to the England national side, Australian Dan McKellar has since taken over the Premiership side. McKellar is no stranger to Irish rugby, having played for and coached Wicklow RFC in the early 2000s.
Leinster are already guaranteed a place in the last-16 of the Champions Cup, with three wins from three, and while a win will see them book home advantage and a high seeding, they face a Leicester side who have everything to play for
The Tigers could be dumped out of the competition with a defeat, and after a heavy loss away to La Rochelle a week ago, Cullen is expecting a backlash against the side he won a Premiership title with as a player in 2007.
"I know myself they're a proud club with a proud history and they'll be giving it everything for their team.
"There's a hell of a lot at stake when everyone's worked hard to get to this point in the pool, so it's about making sure we finish the job properly. The guys have trained well this week, and everyone's looking forward to getting going. It'll be a tough challenge for us.
"There's so many different permutations, you could drive yourself mad. It's reasonably simple for us; we just need to go out and put in a big performance. If you get a big performance it gives you the best chance to win the game. That's been the focus for us really.
"We've a pretty similar team, we haven't chopped and changed too much. That cohesion is important for us, we did chop and change a bit over the Christmas period. For this week it's important we have that cohesion, and we're hopeful for a decent performance.
"Leicester are a team that will kick the ball a fair amount, they'll put a lot of pressure on us and be physical around the contact area. We just have to make sure we're ready in our own minds for the challenge we'll face."
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