Shane Horgan - one of only four players to have scored over 25 Heineken Cup tries - has been declared fit to line-up on the right wing for defending champions Leinster when they clash with ASM Clermont Auvergne at a sell-out RDS in the first of the 2010 tournament quarter-finals tomorrow night (8.00pm).
A foot injury forced Horgan to miss the derby win over Munster at Thomond Park on Good Friday but he is back to face the French high-fliers who are bidding to get past the quarter-finals for the first time and at the third attempt.
Brian O'Driscoll partners international colleague Gordon D'Arcy at centre in a backline which features Horgan, Rob Kearney and Isa Nacewa as the back three with the last eight winner earning a trip to either Toulouse or Stade Français Paris in the semi-finals on the weekend of 1 / 2 May.
In the pack, Leo Cullen skippers the side and is partnered in the second row by Scotland's Nathan Hines. Stan Wright continues in the front row alongside John Fogarty and CJ van der Linde, while Kevin McLaughlin takes his place in the back-row alongside fellow Ireland colleagues Shane Jennings and Jamie Heaslip.
Leinster have players from five different nationalities in their starting line-up - Ireland, Scotland, South Africa, Fiji and the Cook Islands are all represented - but cosmopolitan Clermont beat that with something to spare.
Aurelien Rougerie's squad showcases nine countries with Canadian lock Jamie Cudmore preferred to current French squad member Julien Pierre in the starting line-up.
While they field a formidable and massive all-French back row of Julien Bonnaire, Alex Lapandry and Elvis Vermeulen, the front row is made up of new French "find" Thomas Domingo, Argentine hooker Mario Ledesma and Georgian prop Davit Zirakashvili.
Grand Slam winner Morgan Parra and Australian Brock James team up at half back with South African Marius Joubert and Italian Gonzalo Canale the centre partnership with Test wings and fellow Grand Slam champions Rougerie and Julien Malzieu posing the threat out wide.
The teams have met just twice in the tournament - Leinster winning both Pool matches by three point margins in the 2002/03 competition.
