Kearney set for Leinster return

Rob Kearney will make his first appearance for Leinster since January in Friday's friendly against Gloucester.

The full back, 31, last featured for his province against Castres in the Champions Cup pool stage in January, and has not played at all since his injuring his bicep in Ireland's Six Nations defeat to Wales in March.

"Rob Kearney had his bicep repaired and had a procedure done on his knee as well, there’s a good chance he’ll be available this weekend," Leinster head coach Leo Cullen said.

Dave Kearney, who missed much of last season with an ankle injury, is also expected to return for Friday's game at Templeville Road.

Jamie Heaslip, Joey Carbery and Sean Cronin have all returned to training but Garry Ringrose and Robbie Henshaw are not expected to return until October or November.

Cullen says Heaslip is "making his way back and not a million miles away" from the back injury that ruled him out of the Lions' tour, but warned that Ringrose may not recover from his shoulder problems until November.

"It was a little bit more complicated so it's hard to put a definite time line on him," Cullen said.

The Leinster coach says the pressure is on after two semi-final defeats last season, to Castres in the European Rugby Champions Cup and to Scarlets in the Pro 12.

"There's always pressure, all the time," he acknowledged. 

"There's different pressure; look at Chelsea, they won the league last season, and [Antonio] Conte was probably under no pressure when he was coming in after the season they'd had - and now he's probably under huge pressure because they over achieved.

"That's the thing - does the pressure come off because he won the league? No, it probably intensifies.

"If you look at it, I think the reason I got the job, was nobody else wanted to take the challenge on, where you're missing 16 players from the World Cup, it turned out to be 19, that's a difficult challenge - what coach wants that?"

Image Inpho/ Morgan Treacy

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