{"id":396475,"date":"2026-04-13T16:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T16:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/396475\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T16:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T16:12:08","slug":"baird-and-usanov-ruled-out-for-leinsters-trip-to-ulster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/396475\/","title":{"rendered":"Baird and Usanov ruled out for Leinster’s trip to Ulster"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryan Baird and Alex Usanov have been ruled out while Josh van der Flier is a selection doubt for Leinster’s United Rugby Championship clash with Ulster in Belfast this Friday.<\/p>\n

Prop Usanov played for just four minutes in Leinster’s comfortable Champions Cup quarter-final victory over Sale Sharks<\/a>, being withdrawn with an ankle injury and replaced by Jerry Cahir.<\/p>\n

The injury to Usanov further narrows Leinster’s options at loosehead prop, with Andrew Porter still a doubt ahead of Friday’s game, having sat out last weekend.<\/p>\n

Baird, who scored Leinster’s third try of the game, was hauled off with just 20 minutes remaining, replaced by Max Deegan.<\/p>\n

Both are unavailable for the trip to Affidea Stadium on Friday.<\/p>\n

Van der Flier also came off in the second half against Sale and his availability remains in question, with a further assessment to come later in the week.<\/p>\n

Caelan Doris, who, like Porter, missed the Sale game, is also due for further assessment later in the week.<\/p>\n

In better news for Leo Cullen, Hugh Cooney has returned to training after recovering from a foot injury and is available for selection.<\/p>\n

While Leinster booked a home semi-final against Toulon in the Champions Cup, back on the domestic front, they remain in fourth spot in the United Rugby Championship, with four games left in the regular season.<\/p>\n

Follow our live blog on Ireland v Italy in the Women’s Six Nations on Saturday from 5.40pm. Listen to Saturday Sport on RT\u00c9 Radio 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan Baird and Alex Usanov have been ruled out while Josh van der Flier is a selection doubt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-396475","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\/396475","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=396475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}