{"id":153977,"date":"2025-06-03T05:19:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T05:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/153977\/"},"modified":"2025-06-03T05:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T05:19:11","slug":"leinster-hopeful-josh-van-der-flier-will-be-fit-for-glasgow-clash-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/153977\/","title":{"rendered":"Leinster hopeful Josh van der Flier will be fit for Glasgow clash \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Josh van der Flier<\/a> and Leinster<\/a> have been enduring an anxious wait for the results of a scan on the hamstring injury which forced him off in the first half of his side\u2019s BKT URC quarter-final win over the Scarlets last Saturday.<\/p>\n

But the province remain reasonably hopeful that van der Flier might yet be fit for next Saturday\u2019s semi-final against Glasgow Warriors at the Aviva Stadium (kick-off 2.45pm) and that the injury will not jeopardise his fitness for the forthcoming British & Irish Lions tour to Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope for clearance,\u201d said senior coach Jacques Nienaber at the squad\u2019s HPC on Monday which, being a bank holiday, may have contributed to the delay in obtaining results. \u201cWe sent him for a scan yesterday but I don\u2019t think it has come back yet. That\u2019s quite weird, for a first-world country, so we are still waiting.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the intervening void, Nienaber was not inclined to speculate.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, I am fingers crossed, toes crossed, that he can make the semi-final. It would be nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garry Ringrose will also be monitored before a decision is made on his fitness after missing last week\u2019s quarter-final with a calf injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did some running last week so his race against time is going through the return-to-play protocols so running, change direction, acceleration, deceleration,\u201d said Nienaber.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he can tick all the boxes and doesn\u2019t have symptoms after being loaded, then he is available for selection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, Tommy O\u2019Brien will be further assessed for a foot injury, while Jordan Larmour has returned to full training. However, Tadhg Furlong has been ruled out and is unlikely to add to his injury curtailed haul of seven games for Leinster and three for Ireland this season due to his recurring calf issues.<\/p>\n

\"Leinster'sLeinster’s Tadhg Furlong. Photograph: James Crombie\/Inpho <\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t talk for him,\u201d said Nienaber, \u201cbut he hasn\u2019t played a lot, didn\u2019t play in the Six Nations, then comes back for two or three games and then he gets a setback again. It\u2019s tough for a player to get a rhythm. You like to get a string of games and build on your confidence and get the team to get confidence in you, so I think it is frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Leinster lacked precision in their handling and were at times impatient against the Scarlets, the two-time World Cup-winning coach reasoned that \u201cknockouts are a little bit different. It\u2019s a different competition and something that in international level one doesn\u2019t get exposed to except in World Cups.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if you look at Glasgow they\u2019ve been quite successful, Munster have been quite successful, we haven\u2019t been successful with it yet. Hopefully we took lessons out of the previous games we played in knockouts and we can apply ourselves a little bit better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of lost knockout ties, the Champions Cup semi-final defeat to Northampton appears to be lingering but Nienaber maintained this wasn\u2019t the case for him. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it\u2019s gone. The competition is gone. Next year. Like, is there a anything we can about it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Informed that Leo Cullen had, unprompted, referenced the Northampton game four times in his post-match last Saturday, Nienaber said: \u201cMaybe with Leo, but not for me. For me it\u2019s water under the bridge. Not one ounce of energy from me personally put into, thinking about the Champions Cup semi-final is going to change anything, except the lessons you learn. So maybe he referenced that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s definitely stuff that we could have learned and that being the last knockout game that we played that\u2019s definitely something we can bring into that.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, maybe his angle was more that; there\u2019s lessons from our last knock-out game that we played was Europe and now we have a URC one.\u201d<\/p>\n

That 52-0 Champions Cup quarter-final win in the Aviva over Glasgow seems much more than eight weeks ago now. It was put in perspective five weeks\u2019 later by Leinster\u2019s hard-earned 13-5 over the same opponents in the same stadium and with Sione Tuipulotu, Kyle Steyn, Max Williamson and Scott Cummings having all returned from injury in recent weeks the reigning champions were full value for their 36-18 quarter-final win at home to the Stormers last Friday.<\/p>\n

This was a repeat of last season\u2019s quarter-final victory, after which Glasgow won away to Munster and the Bulls to lift the trophy, so heightening the threat they pose next Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, because they love it,\u201d said Nienaber. \u201cIf you think back to last year they went to Munster in Thomond Park. It\u2019s a tall order to win in Thomond Park and they did that. Then it\u2019s an even taller order to fly over, go to altitude, play the Bulls \u2013 which we struggled with. We got knocked out the week before by the Bulls. They went over there and got a result there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh van der Flier and Leinster have been enduring an anxious wait for the results of a scan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,65356,918,4884,65576,50046,30724,712,65357,16,15,4510],"class_list":{"0":"post-153977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-garry-ringrose","10":"tag-glasgow","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-jacques-nienaber","13":"tag-josh-van-der-flier","14":"tag-leinster-rugby","15":"tag-scotland","16":"tag-tadhg-furlong","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-united-rugby-championship"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114617749644297478","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}