Sean O’Brien could make his Leinster comeback against Ulster this weekend at the Kingspan Stadium, further intensifying Ireland’s summer tour back-row battle.
O’Brien’s 2016 RBS 6 Nations was ended by a hamstring injury, but Joe Schmidt’s side filled the considerable void he left with youngsters Josh van der Flier and Tommy O’Donnell.
Van der Flier in particular was a real bright spot and excelled on debut against Grand Slam champions England, but as Leinster seek to solidify their spot at the Pro12 summit, his return will be extremely welcome.
O’Brien, who has 44 international caps, could make his provincial return as early as this weekend and he will surely come into contention for Ireland’s Test series in South Africa if he can prove his fitness.
And Leinster coach Girvan Dempsey is hopeful that the powerful back-row forward will be available sooner rather than later.
“We’re hoping we can push that on this week and we’ll assess him later in the week to see how he is for the weekend,” the former Ireland full-back said.
“If he gets through the workload, the volume of training we have, then he’ll be in the mix. We had always targeted this period to return.
“It’ll depend on how he goes in the first two days this week. “It’s important that he got through some running last week.
“His progress has been spot-on, he’s been hitting most of his markers so it’ll really just be about seeing how he deals with the added volume of a team session.”
