LEINSTER HEAD COACH Leo Cullen is leaving nothing to chance by naming a stacked starting XV for Sunday\u2019s Champions Cup round of 16 meeting with Edinburgh.<\/p>\n
The four-time European champions are 20-point favourites for Sunday\u2019s Aviva Stadium knockout match against an Edinburgh side who have only won once away from home all season.<\/p>\n
And Cullen has named no fewer than 14 Irish internationals, plus All Black Rieko Ioane, as they bid to set up a home quarter-final against either Harlequins or Sale.<\/p>\n
Ryan Baird returns at lock for his first Leinster start in almost six months, while Hugo Keenan \u2013 who made a try scoring return from his own long injury lay-off against Glasgow a fortnight ago \u2013 starts at fullback once again.<\/p>\n
Harry Byrne is once again handed the keys at out-half, with Ciar\u00e1n Frawley providing cover from the bench.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Edinburgh are without captain Magnus Bradbury, who is ruled out with an ankle injury, as well as Scotland star Duhan van der Merwe, who is still recovering from the ankle injury he suffered during the Six Nations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe go to the Aviva Stadium with nothing to lose and everything to gain,\u201d head coach Sean Everitt said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a group of players who believe in what they\u2019re doing, and we\u2019re going out there to have a real go at one of the best sides in Europe.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Leinster Rugby<\/p>\n
15. Hugo Keenan
14. Tommy O\u2019Brien
13. Rieko Ioane
12. Jamie Osborne
11. Jimmy O\u2019Brien
10. Harry Byrne
9. Jamison Gibson-Park<\/p>\n
1. Andrew Porter
2. Dan Sheehan
3. Tadhg Furlong
4. Joe McCarthy
5. Ryan Baird
6. Jack Conan
7. Josh van der Flier
8. Caelan Doris (capt)<\/p>\n
Replacements:<\/p>\n
16. Gus McCarthy
17. Alex Usanov
18. Thomas Clarkson
19. Brian Deeny
20. Max Deegan
21. Luke McGrath
22. Ciar\u00e1n Frawley
23. Robbie Henshaw<\/p>\n
Edinburgh Rugby<\/p>\n
15. Piers O\u2019Conor
14. Darcy Graham
13. Matt Currie
12. James Lang
11. Malelili Satala
10. Ross Thompson
9. Charlie Shiel<\/p>\n
1. Pierre Schoeman
2. Ewan Ashman
3. D\u2019arcy Rae
4. Marshall Sykes
5. Grant Gilchrist (capt)
6. Liam McConnell
7. Dylan Richardson
8. Ben Muncaster<\/p>\n
Replacements:<\/p>\n
16. Jerry Blyth-Lafferty
17. Boan Venter
18. Paul Hill
19. Glen Young
20. Freddy Douglas
21. Ben Vellacott
22. Mosese Tuipulotu
23. Jack Brown<\/p>\n
Referee: Luke Pearce (RFU).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEINSTER HEAD COACH Leo Cullen is leaving nothing to chance by naming a stacked starting XV for Sunday\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[32728,28141,42,10562,43,3654,11580,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-380086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-champions-cup","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-leinster","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-rugby","14":"tag-team-news","15":"tag-top-news","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-topnews","18":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380086","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=380086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}