Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

Forde has missed the last couple of weeks with a shoulder knock and a HIA a couple of weeks before that too.

Arundell is Wales and Scotland qualified but not Ireland. Farrell playing for Ireland would be hilarious. He would be 35 and probably out of England contention anyway but it would be funny to see the mayhem.

After doing a really quick search there are 4 players straight away that are Irish qualified.

Piers O'Conor - Utility back for Bristol Bears

Dan Kelly 1 cap for England - Centre - Centre Leicester Tigers. Irish qualified this year. Previously with Ireland U20s

Brett Connon - fly half - Newcastle Falcons - Irish father - Played for U20's

Raffi Quirke - Scrum Half - Sale Sharks - 2 Cap for England but Irish qualified in November. Contract until 2025 with Sale.

Freddie Burns is an ideal person to take over from Joey Carbery. I just wouldn't mind the IRFU stealing some players away from England!

The more digging I do, the more likely it is that Leinster will nearly certainly use a NIQ on a tighthead prop unless Aungier or Moore make the switch back which more than likely won't happen.

I'd say there are alot of them out there but England seem to throw a cap to any prospect who has potential just to block them for playing for Ireland, Wales or Scotland.

Tom Clarkson has definitely taken a step in the right direction but I am still worried about the tighthead position. Furlong looked good in his return but I really am worried bout the depth chart next season.

I'm wracking my brain to who would be a good replacement for Ala'alatoa and find myself coming back to the same names who are in their mid thirties and haven't much left in the tank.

If Leinster want to continue with Porter on the other side of the scrum, they will need to bring in a monster scrum technican on the other side to cause trouble for opposing teams.

It has been way easier to find a loosehead to replace Porter if Porter moved back to tighthead but Leinster wouldn't do that at the expense of the Ireland squad.

Any suggestions?

Raffi Quirke looked good against Leinster for Sale. Tidy player and based on age profile of 9's at the moment (park/murray) could do worse than getting him back and involved.

Leinster have to be extremely tactical about the player to replace Ala'alatoa. That player needs to be ok with coming off the bench but also has to have the necessary quality to start a large volume of games if Furlong is out or on International duty. They need to fit into Nienaber's philosophy and be an excellent scrummager and ideally would be technically sound with ball in hand. They also need to be at an age profile where long term they aren't holding up the young Irish born Leinster prospects at the position. That sort of quality will cost a pretty penny and very few are out of contract this Summer.

Leinster should have enough but 10 changes for Leicester from last week puts in context the different challenge that this should present. They'll be a far more challenging side than they were to La Rochelle.

Will take any sort of win but not sure a BP win would be in the mix here.

Sale vs LAR could be the game of the round. No Danty available but they've stuck to their game plan no matter what....big bruising 12 needed so they've moved Tanga there which is completely out of the blue. Crash ball ahoy.