{"id":351134,"date":"2026-03-17T17:47:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T17:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/351134\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T17:47:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T17:47:17","slug":"hugo-keenan-could-make-leinster-return-for-trip-to-glasgow-on-saturday-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/351134\/","title":{"rendered":"Hugo Keenan could make Leinster return for trip to Glasgow on Saturday \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland<\/a> fullback Hugo Keenan<\/a> could be back in the Leinster<\/a> squad as early as this week for their United Rugby Championship<\/a> (URC) match against Glasgow on Saturday in Scotstoun Stadium (kick-off 5.30pm).<\/p>\n

Keenan (broken thumb), along with prop Andrew Porter (calf) and flanker Ryan Baird (leg fracture), missed the Six Nations<\/a> championship and Ireland\u2019s Triple Crown win, with each of them now at different stages of their rehabilitation.<\/p>\n

Irish secondrow James Ryan is a doubt for the Glasgow game. A key member this year\u2019s Irish squad, Ryan is due to be assessed on a calf injury with a final decision on his availability to be made later in the week.<\/p>\n

Coach Leo Cullen was positive about Keenan\u2019s return and hopeful that Porter would be back sooner rather than later as Leinster face into a Champions Cup Round of 16 match against Edinburgh on April 5th at the Aviva Stadium.<\/p>\n

\"\"Ireland denied the title by France’s late act<\/p>\n

\u201cHugo Keenan is good,\u201d said Cullen. \u201cHe\u2019s trained away so hopefully he will feature at some point in the very near future for his first game of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Andrew will be similar. They\u2019re both going good now. They\u2019re both very different. Hugo was very close to being back, but he had a setback.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut he\u2019s training now for the Heineken [Cup] so hopefully Hugo might feature this weekend. Ports [Porter] is just trying to get a bit more training into him. But he\u2019s looking good.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll just manage James [Ryan] this week, so it\u2019s sort of a week of rehab for him and then let\u2019s just see. It\u2019s just early days. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a show stopper, but it will be a couple of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cullen also said that he is \u201coptimistic\u201d and \u201chopeful\u201d about Irish left wing James Lowe remaining at Leinster, although nothing has yet been finalised.<\/p>\n

Lowe, who injured his groin in Ireland\u2019s 21-42 record win over England at Twickenham, is out of contract at the end of this season and along with Bundee Aki has been linked with a move abroad.<\/p>\n

\"JamesJames Ryan is a doubt for Leinster’s trip to play Glasgow on Saturday in the United Rugby Championship. Photograph: Grace Halton\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Baird will take longer to get back to fitness after suffering a fracture to his tibia against South Africa in Ireland\u2019s final Test of the Autumn Nations series. The 26-year-old played every minute of the Chicago clash with New Zealand and in the Irish wins over Japan and Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cRyan Baird will be tighter for the knock-out rounds but certainly if he doesn\u2019t make that, certainly just after that,\u201d said Cullen. \u201cHe\u2019ll be close. He\u2019s back running I think now so he\u2019s looking in good shape. James Lowe, he\u2019ll be longer.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, some of the lads that were in camp will be or were training today. Robbie Henshaw, Jimmy O\u2019Brien, Ciar\u00e1n Frawley, Sam Prendergast, Thomas Clarkson,\u201d added Cullen.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaddy McCarthy will be gone for a while, [Jack] Boyle gone for the season. Obviously Rabah [Slimani] came back and played the last day as well. which is good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cullen is hoping for a rebound against Glasgow following their 8-7 away defeat to Cardiff last time out.<\/p>\n

It leaves Leinster in fourth place on the table with four defeats from 12 matches with Ulster, Stormers and leaders Glasgow above them.<\/p>\n

Cullen was uncertain whether Glasgow would have their international players available for the URC match after last weekend\u2019s closing Six Nations defeat to Ireland in Dublin. Eight of the Scotland starting team were Glasgow players with four more on the bench.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a good window for us,\u201d said Cullen. \u201cWe played one game which we lost, unfortunately pretty horrific conditions, Cardiff on a Friday night. And you lose a tight game 8-7. But Cardiff were very good in terms of their kicking game.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just making sure we learn from that game now and get the group back together slowly but surely. And get excited for the games we have because Glasgow, sitting at the top of the table, it\u2019ll be a proper challenge for us now. Very difficult place to go, as we know, from over the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they\u2019re probably the form team in Europe so far this season. So it\u2019s a proper challenge for the group now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland fullback Hugo Keenan could be back in the Leinster squad as early as this week for their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[75388,61,60,43964,87073,11287,112,14881],"class_list":["post-351134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-andrew-porter","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-james-lowe","tag-james-ryan","tag-leinster-rugby","tag-sports","tag-united-rugby-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}