Leinster beat Clermont 15-7 at the Aviva on Saturday. While the win maintains Leinster’s unbeaten start to the season, the performance itself was somewhat underwhelming, and reminiscent of the frustrating Ireland performances at the same venue last month.
Perhaps it’s no surprise considering the overlap in personnel between both teams.
In particular, the lineout malfunctioned again on Saturday, with Leinster losing 40 per cent of their lineouts.
However, there’s cause for optimism in the lineout as Dan Sheehan could be back on the playing field far sooner than expected.
After another lost Leinster lineout in the second half, the camera panned to Dan Sheehan amongst his teammates in the crowd.
Sheehan has been sidelined with an ACL injury suffered last July in the first Test against the Springboks in Pretoria.
Fellow hooker Bernard Jackman then shared a conversation he’d had with Sheehan before the game on the RTÉ commentary.
“I spoke to him earlier, he’s hoping the end of January, which would be way ahead of schedule.”
That optimism matches the sentiments of Sheehan who told media last week he’s hoping to play some part in the Six Nations.
“"Hopefully into the new year. It might take a month or two, but that's what I'm sort of aiming at."
Ireland host England at the Aviva in their Six Nations opener on 1 February.
Sheehan would be a massive boost to Ireland, given his dynamism as a ball-carrier and his throwing abilities in the lineout.
Jackman and Donal Lenihan also discussed why the Ireland lineout has been so poor over the past 15 months.
“It’s actually not all about the throws,” Jackman said. “This is obviously an area that’s been frustrating for Ireland and Leinster. We haven’t actually developed an out-and-out lineout caller. “
“Someone needs to take ownership of it. Now the problem is you need that person there 80% of the time,“ Lenihan added.
Speaking after the game, Leo Cullen said his team got ‘rattled’ in the lineout.
“Because of the way they are coached, you go through the history of Christophe Urios teams, they will kick the ball off and pressurise lineout, which was what we expected
"We didn't see some of the pictures and then we got rattled, couple of throws go awry and combination of lots of different things and then suddenly you are losing seven lineouts or whatever it was.
"That sort of creeps into the rest of our game."
Dan Sheehan won’t solve all of Leinster’s lineout problems but he’d be a brilliant addition as Ireland and Leinster seek to solve what is becoming an Achilles heel.
