Leinster Report No Fresh Injury Concerns

The Leinster squad trained at UCD on Monday afternoon ahead of their RaboDirect PRO12 encounter with Edinburgh at the RDS on Friday (kick-off 7.45pm).

The province's medical team have reported no fresh injury concerns following last Saturday's Heineken Cup quarter-final victory over the Cardiff Blues.

Following their qualification to the Heineken Cup semi-finals for the fourth successive season, Leinster's focus turns back to their league campaign.

It is hoped that centre Eoin O'Malley will recover from the calf strain which had ruled him out of selection for last weekend's game.

The last meeting between Leinster and Edinbugh in October was a high-scoring affair with Leinster winning 36-28 that day.

Jonathan Sexton chipped in with 23 points at Murrayfield and has now scored 728 points in 87 appearances for Leinster.

Isa Nacewa, a try scorer at the Aviva Stadium, is now just three appearances short of becoming only the second overseas player (after Felipe Contepomi) to make 100 appearances for the province.

Aside from the usual bumps and bruises, there are no major injury concerns as the province face into back-to-back PRO12 ties against fellow European semi-finalists with the squad travelling to Belfast to face Ulster next week.

Meanwhile, to celebrate the Easter holidays the Leinster squad will be holding an open training session ahead of Friday's game at the RDS this Wednesday.

Gates open from 10.30am when training starts. Entrance is free and the squad will meet supporters briefly following training.

Tickets for Friday's game - themed as the province's 'Spring Fling' with lots of family fun including a treasure hunt with Leo the Lion, a picnic area complete with rugs and special deals from the concessions on site, bouncy castles and much more around the ground - are fast approaching the 15,000 mark.

A range of family tickets are available and start from €50 for two adults and two children. Tickets are on sale online from www.leinsterrugby.ie, and are also available from Spar (Donnybrook), the Leinster Rugby Store (Donnybrook) and Ticketmaster outlets nationwide.

Previewing Saturday's RaboDirect PRO12 final against Leinster with Cóilín Duffy, Ulster winger Andrew Trimble said: "We really motivated for this game. People are talking about us being the best Ulster side in a few years, we had that record of 13 wins in a row at the start of the year. We want to win trophies, and there's no point having those records unless we back them up."

Connacht elite player development officer Jimmy Duffy chats about the province's latest programme, 'Grassroots to Green Shirts', which they hope will increase the number of indigenous players coming through the provincial player pathway. In the westerners' current senior squad, there are 19 players who have come through the Connacht system.

Speaking about Connacht's 'Grassroots to Green Shirts' initiative, the province's CEO Tom Sears said: "We like to think we're innovative in our approach, that we're looking at things slightly differently. We've shown that the production line is working with the young players coming through. The system is working, we just need a bit more investment to make sure we can get more players through."

Connacht's head of commercial and marketing Alex Saul talks about some exciting developments off the pitch for the province, including their 'Grassroots to Green Shirts' crowd-funding initiative which gives fans the chance to play their part in growing and developing the future stars of Connacht and Irish rugby.

Speaking after the 30-11 home win over the Dragons, Connacht head coach Eric Elwood said: "We're a little bit disappointed we didn't get the bonus point, but the good thing is we got a good victory at home and we had a great crowd. We're back on the horse and it sets us up for Harlequins (next week)."

Speaking about recovering from the disappointing defeat to the Scarlets, young Leinster centre Noel Reid said: "We went over looking for a result and we didn't perform the way we wanted to. So we need a big week now of training and focusing on the things that didn't go our way - the breakdown in particular."