LEO CULLEN has named his Leinster Rugby team to take on the DHL Stormers at the DHL Stadium on Saturday.
Cullen heavily rotated the team from the team that lost to Cell C Sharks in Durban last week.
The team is as follows:
First rank: Ed Byrne, John McKee, Thomas Clarkson
Second rank:Brian Deeny, Josh Murphy
Last row: Alex Soroka, Scott Penny, Rhys Ruddock cap
half back: Cormac Foley (scrum half) Ciarán Frawley (outside half)
Centers: Jamie Osborne, Rory O’Loughlin
Wingers: Rob Russell, Adam Byrne
Back: Max O’Reilly
Substitutes: Lee Barro, Michael Milne, Vakh Abdaladze, Jack Dunne, Seán O’Brien, Nick McCarthy, Harry Byrne, Martin Moloney
Arbitrator –C Evans (WRU)
💪 | here is your #LeinsterRugby team to assume @THESTORMERS in Cape Town tomorrow evening. 👇
A welcome return to the team of the day for @michaelmilne7! 🙌#STOvLEI #URC pic.twitter.com/32tpAdLAEU
— Leinster Rugby (@leinsterrugby) April 29, 2022
This week, the Leinster boss came to the defense of his rotating squad and explained the selections.
“I understand that if you’re sitting in their place,” Cullen said,
“But there are a lot of different things going on. Seasonally, it’s such an unusual dynamic and we debated it a long time ago once they changed that format, adding three more play-offs in two tournaments.
“If you are eliminated by Connacht, this trip becomes very, very different for us. But because we’re in Europe and we have a bit of a gap, you want to reward the players who got us through the Six Nations with another trip and see how they do, and build the experience, investing in the future and all those good things that we are very proud of.
“But for the South African media or broadcasters, yes maybe they want the names of the stars.
“The way the system works, you can’t get the best out of our players and our players are our assets at the end of the day, right?
“If you have your November internationals, your Six Nations internationals and your summer tour, there are X number of internationals, so how many games are you going to get out of that?
The match will take place on Saturday April 30 at 6:15 p.m.
