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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Sport
Michael Scully

Former Dubs selector Declan Darcy to bring 'fresh approach' to Leinster as performance coach

Leo Cullen is excited that Declan Darcy is part of the fresh approach Leinster will take into the new season.

Having lost out in last term's European final and at URC's semi-final stage, the Blues were left empty-handed for the first time in five years.

But the return of new backs coach Andrew Goodman for Felipe Contepomi will bring new tactics, the return of Sean O'Brien as contact skills coach has created a dressing-room buzz while Darcy - the former Leitrim Dublin footballer who was Jim Gavin's backroom lieutenant for the Dubs' historic five-in-a-row - will bring a different angle as performance coach.

READ MORE: Leo Cullen keeping door open to possible Johnny Sexton retirement U-turn

"It has to be like that," insisted Cullen. "It’s never going to be the same, because if you just keep doing the same thing, you get found out.

"You need to keep re-energising the message in the group, personnel, younger players coming through and all the rest.

"Declan has come into that space - there has always been somebody who has been in that space as a performance coach."

Describing the influence Darcy is bringing, Cullen said: "There's that little bit of observation around the body language of training.

"Like, coaches are a bit more focused on the actual session itself, the move, the player - blah, blah, blah - but there are other parts to it.

"Declan is hugely experienced in terms of working with a high quality team, a very successful group, the dynamic of a successful group, the continued success of a group, how do you keep reinventing yourselves.

"You can't go stale, you can't be the same because players need to be challenged in different ways, coaches need to be challenged in different ways as well.

"We've coaches who have come into the group as well, which is hopefully a good thing because it's fresh voices and then at the start it's right, are we all on the same page and that's the challenge because everyone's throwing new ideas in.

"So it's making sure we are able to harness that in a positive way. That's going back to being excited about us playing proper games now."

Cullen is excited to get going after the pre-season build-up and is not worried that the Emerging Ireland tour to South Africa will take a good number of his younger players away in October.

"No, you've got to always work with the system," he commented.

"We'll always have a healthy debate about certain things in the background - 'we think this would be good for this person' - and we just tease it out and we try to get some level of common ground."

The decision to stage an Ireland A game in November won't disrupt Leinster either, as it will take place on the weekend of Ireland's Test clash with South Africa.

Cullen confirmed that Ciarán Frawley, who played at centre for Leinster last season but was impressive for Ireland in their two fixtures with the Maori All Blacks in July, will get game time at 10 early in the campaign.

The Blues kick off their season at Zebre on Saturday and Frawley may have to bide his time as Ross Byrne has recovered from a foot injury.

Hugo Keenan and James Lowe will miss the opening weeks, however.

Keenan is rehabbing a knee and abdominal issue and will be unavailable for a number of weeks, according to the province.

And winger Lowe has suffered a calf injury in training and will also be absent for a number of weeks.

Hooker James Tracy underwent neck surgery over the summer and will miss four months.

Leinster will also be without Joe McCarthy and Jordan Larmour for the Zebre game.

Second row McCarthy had an ankle procedure over the summer but is due to increase his training load this week ahead of joining the squad fully next week.

Larmour is in a similar position having had a knee procedure over the summer.

However Rónan Kelleher has returned to full training after recovering from a shoulder injury that cost him his place in New Zealand.

Will Connors, who suffered a season-ending knee injury in February, is also back on stream, as is veteran winger Dave Kearney after a hamstring injury.

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