Opportunity knocks this week as Treviso come to the RDS, no more so than in the back row.
Ireland flankers Josh van der Flier and Dan Leavy are out for the rest of the season, Sean O'Brien is still not back to his best and Champions Cup final starter Jordi Murphy is now at Ulster.
For young players like Caelan Doris, Max Deegan and Scott Penney, the teenager who has been outstanding in his debut season, the chance is there now to show they should be involved at the business end of the campaign.
After the team was collectively under par in last Saturday's Champions Cup quarter-final, Leo Cullen will be keeping an eagle eye on fringe men in the coming weeks.
‘Absolutely, there are guys that have performed really well," said forwards coach John Fogarty.
"There are guys on the up. "Leo said it before, you’ve got pick them at some stage.
"So that’s where we’re at, making sure that we’re giving guys opportunities, then making sure that we’re selecting them based on how they play and how they perform.
"We want the group to be performing well, we want pressure on the group.
"We know we’re not going to get anything out of the season at the end of it unless we’ve got a group that are hungry that have performed well.
"We're not going to select on what has happened in the past. We're going to look to see who's being going quite well.
Fogarty, who confirmed he is still in talks with Leinster and Ireland about his future - he is strongly linked with a move to the national set-up when Andy Farrell takes over - says the process of Champions Cup semi-final selection begins this weekend.
"Guys are going to get their opportunities now. We’ve got a very hungry Treviso team that are sitting third (in Leinster's Conference.
"Treviso came over here last year and won 17-15 so there’s lots of motivation, they’re playing better than they’ve probably ever played.
"Whoever is selected this weekend will have an opportunity to go and play later on in the year."
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