Champions Cup final boost for Leinster as Leo Cullen says key trio could all be fit for Toulouse showdown

James Ryan of Leinster

Rúaidhrí O'Connor

They aren’t ready to be part of a strong team to face the Ospreys at the RDS tomorrow, but Leinster remain hopeful that their trio of injured Ireland internationals could still come back in time for the Champions Cup final against Toulouse in two weeks’ time.

Garry Ringrose was close to a comeback against Northampton last week, but suffered a “set-back” on his shoulder injury.

Hugo Keenan remains sidelined with the hip injury that’s kept him out since the Six Nations, but he and bicep victim James Ryan are back running and are considered close to a return.

Cullen has named 20 of the matchday 23 that featured at Croke Park last weekend for Leinster’s penultimate RDS home game before the stadium is redeveloped.

Joe McCarthy, James Lowe and Harry Byrne are rested as they manage niggles that are not considered serious.

Jacques Nienaber speaking ahead of Leinster v Ospreys

“They’re going pretty good,” Cullen said of Ringrose, Ryan and Keenan.

"Again Garry, as I said to you last week, I thought he would have been involved last week, but again he just had a bit of a set-back during the course of the week.

"We’ll see how that settles down really. I don’t think it is anything major. He got to the stage where he was very close to playing.

"Hugo hadn’t quite done enough, but he’s back running fully now. Hopefully he’s pretty close.

"Similar with James, he’s pretty close now as well. It’s down to what is the exact right game to put them into. It’s not this week, but I think hopefully we’ll see a few of them in action next week. We’ll see, it’s day-by-day.”

Cullen is happy to press the majority of his frontliners into service as Leinster look to finish the URC season in top spot, having fallen behind Glasgow Warriors during their trip to South Africa.

"Guys have been managed for the previous two weeks,” he said.

"Northampton had been on a run of games, they had that cohesion together, our guys have that from training but then you want to see what it's like from a game point of view.

“We got through last week, that was the important bit, and guys will play again this week, and we'll see how everybody is.

"We're in the situation we find ourselves in the URC, that's a very important piece for us so we want to make sure we give ourselves the best chance.

“Ospreys are a very formidable opponent as well. They Welsh regions have had their challenges over the course of the season but the Ospreys have come through and found some good form. We know a lot of their players over the years and they have a doggedness about them. We need to make sure we prepare well for that this week.

“It's a different challenge this week, we've tried to prepare the lads as well as we can for the challenge that they'll face against the Ospreys. They have plenty of threats, so hopefully we have a good performance here at the RDS."