It was always going to be a tall order for any player to follow Johnny Sexton as Leinster captain, so the chosen solution of sharing the responsibility between James Ryan and Garry Ringrose is not without merit.
The pair of Ireland internationals bring a lot of experience to the Leinster team, in two different areas of the pitch, and have established themselves as leaders with both the province and at test level in recent years.
That is not to say that it has been without issue since being implemented at the start of this season. Ryan got himself in hot water during the URC game against Munster at the Aviva Stadium last month, when he attempted to speak to the referee while Ringrose was nominated as the on-field point of contact.
On the opening weekend of the Champions Cup, Ryan once again found himself in trouble.
During last week's epic win in La Rochelle, a series of pleas for on-field calls from the second row ultimately saw match referee Matthew Carley refuse to speak with him, insisting that he would only deal with Ringrose from that point on.
Ahead of their first home game of the pool stage, Leinster coach Leo Cullen has defended the province's decision to persevere with the co-captain policy - and defended James Ryan for his run-in with Carley last Sunday.
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Leinster: Leo Cullen backs James Ryan after referee run-in
10 December 2023; Leinster co-captains James Ryan and Garry Ringrose during the Investec Champions Cup match between La Rochelle and Leinster at Stade Marcel Deflandre in La Rochelle, France. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
Speaking to the Irish media, Leo Cullen explained that the chaos of a dirty, gripping contest in La Rochelle last Sunday was what led James Ryan to become frustrated with the match referee, and defended his co-captain for his repeated calls for the referee to look at incidents.
Nonetheless, Cullen would also accept that Carley was within his rights to be frustrated with the Leinster co-captain, and understood his call to speak to Ringrose instead:
There was so much going on in that game, wasn't there? You could see that people were getting frustrated. James just happened to be the funnel at the time.
He is the one who is going to the referee with some of that information, whether that's coming from other players or somewhere else. That is the way I saw it playing out.
Going back to the values of the game, we have to respect the officials and let them do their job but at certain times you have to be able to point things out.
There was so much going on in that game which we were frustrated with across the board as you can imagine...we will talk to our co-captains every week about that sort of interaction, yeah. It's understandable why he's frustrated and it's trying to get that message across.
I think the referee said he'd prefer to talk to Garry at that moment in time so that's also fine as well.
Though the reasoning behind this decision to share the responsibility might be sound, the repeated run-ins with referees are beginning to expose the flaws of this approach - a problem entirely of Leinster's own making. If only one captain were chosen, the referee would not have the option to disengage with players.
We are only a few months into the club rugby season, and already this appears to be a recurring issue for Leinster, with clarification desperately needed as to how they will address communication with the referee when both James Ryan and Garry Ringrose are on the pitch.
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