Leinster are dealing with several injury doubts for Saturday's BKT United Rugby Championship semi-final with Stormers, with Joe McCarthy, Dan Sheehan, Tommy O'Brien, Rónan Kelleher, Garry Ringrose, Tadhg Furlong and Jordan Larmour all being monitored for knocks.
McCarthy and Sheehan both departed in the second half of Saturday's quarter-final win against the Lions with injuries, and while head coach Leo Cullen suggested neither were serious on Saturday night, the province’s latest medical update says the pair will be monitored throughout the week.
Furlong had been due to start Saturday’s game before withdrawing with "a little tightness in his calf", according to the head coach, while O’Brien, Kelleher, Ringrose and Larmour had all been carrying knocks into the week.
Saturday’s opponents, Stormers, have their own injury problems, with Springbok out-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu ruled out due to a serious ankle injury.
The South African side were emphatic 35-0 winners when these teams met in the opening round of the season, part of a desperate opening block of games for Leinster where they lost three of their first four.
And head coach Cullen is pleased at how his side have regathered their URC campaign after such a "brutal" start.
"At the end of Round 4, if you'd offered us a home semi-final against the Stormers, I would have bitten your hand off for it, which is a credit to the group, how they've stuck at it and dogged out different wins along the way to get us to this point." Cullen said after Leinster’s win against the Lions on Saturday.
"Anyway, it's great to have a semi-final to look forward to.
"It's a very strong set-piece, very strong kicking game [from the Stormers]. Some serious talent that they have at their disposal down there. It's a great challenge for us, isn’t it?
"But that's exactly what you want. In terms of South African teams and the competition, you see that they won well against Cardiff [in the quarter-final]. You saw the Bulls won very comfortably [against Munster]. They were in cruise control at the end of that game.
"They had a lot of chances to make the score even bigger. You can see the quality of these teams.
"It's a great challenge, isn't it? But that's the beauty of the competition.
"Hopefully there'll be another week after that. Hopefully we'll keep cracking on for as long as we can."
