Schmidt happens for Leinster. KO time announced.

As soon as Leinster announced that a deal had been agreed to bring Josef Schmidt in as Head Coach next year there was an impending inevitability that his first match at the RDS would not be seen from the Leinster dugout. As fate would have it he will be part of the Clermont think tank trying to plot Leinster’s demise in this year’s Heineken Cup.

Speculation that the highly anticipated match would take place at Croke Park has been quashed by Leinster who have sensibly decided to stick with Fortress RDS. The game will take place on Friday 8th April at 8pm. A perfect time for the home support to lubricate their singing voices before kick off. Clermont Head Coach, Vern Cotter, certainly expects this to be the case, “The atmosphere will probably be unbelievable and will be a great, special occasion. Few players get the opportunity to experience such occasions. It will be a real honour for the club and something to look forward. It will be a match of huge intensity, very difficult.”

There was talk this weekend in the Sunday Independent that Leinster will look to sign Isaac Boss from Ulster. Personally i believe Leinster have adequate cover at scrum half and this will only serve to stunt the career growth of Paul O’Donohue. It will be interesting to see if Leinster add to their panel before the Quarter Final. All eight quarter-finalists may register three additional players for the knock-out stages, one of whom has to be a frontrow player. They cannot have played in this season’s Heineken or Amlin Challenge Cups, nor can they be contracted to Super 15 franchises.

London Irish may have missed out on a Quarter Final place and subsequently another trip to Dublin. This is not the case for their Number 8, Chris Hala’ufia, who has been called to an independent disciplinary session in Dublin to defend his citing for the punch he threw at Leo Cullen in the final Pool 6 game on Saturday.

Enjoy the weekend off from rugby, the serious business starts soon!