{"id":356416,"date":"2026-03-20T16:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T16:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/356416\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T16:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T16:49:09","slug":"keenan-returns-and-usanov-handed-first-start-for-leinster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/356416\/","title":{"rendered":"Keenan returns and Usanov handed first start for Leinster"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Alex Usanov will make his first Leinster start while Scott Penny is in line for his 100th Leinster cap in Saturday&#8217;s BKT United Rugby Championship clash with the Glasgow Warriors at Scotstoun Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>Hugo Keenan returns to the team to make his first appearance of the season after scoring the decisive try in the British and Irish Lions&#8217; series win over Australia in the summer.<\/p>\n<p>Keenan is joined in the back three by Joshua Kenny and Jimmy O&#8217;Brien, while Robbie Henshaw and Rieko Ioane are paired together in the centre.<\/p>\n<p>Luke McGrath captains the side from scrum-half, with Sam Prendergast handed the ten shirt for Saturday&#8217;s game.<\/p>\n<p>Usanov and Thomas Clarkson will be scrumming down either side of R\u00f3nan Kelleher in the front row, with RG Snyman and Brian Deeny in the second row.<\/p>\n<p>James Culhane will start at number eight, with Jack Conan and Will Connors at flanker for the trip to the URC league leaders.<\/p>\n<p>John McKee, Jerry Cahir and Rabah Slimani offer the front row cover for tomorrow&#8217;s game, with Conor O&#8217;Tighearnaigh, Max Deegan and soon-to-be-centurion Penny providing the additional reinforcements to the pack and Fintan Gunne and Ciar\u00e1n Frawley completing the matchday 23.<\/p>\n<p>Leinster: Hugo Keenan; Joshua Kenny, Rieko Ioane, Robbie Henshaw, Jimmy O&#8217;Brien; Sam Prendergast, Luke McGrath; Alex Usanov, R\u00f3nan Kelleher, Thomas Clarkson; RG Snyman, Brian Deeny; Jack Conan, Will Connors, James Culhane<\/p>\n<p>Replacements: John McKee, Jerry Cahir, Rabah Slimani, Conor O&#8217;Tighearnaigh, Max Deegan, Scott Penny, Fintan Gunne, Ciar\u00e1n Frawley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Usanov will make his first Leinster start while Scott Penny is in line for his 100th Leinster&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-356416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356416","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=356416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}