Harry Byrne starts a Champions Cup semi-final for the first time today

HAVING CELEBRATED HIS 27th birthday last week, Harry Byrne finally gets the chance to start a Champions Cup semi-final for Leinster today.

This stage of the competition has been an annual thing for the province, but Byrne hasn’t been their leading man until now.

He was on the bench behind older brother Ross when Leinster beat Northampton at Croke Park in their semi-final in 2024, while Harry also featured as a replacement when Leinster beat Toulouse at the Aviva in the semi-finals the previous year.

But it is new territory for Byrne today as he wears the number 10 shirt for Leinster in their semi-final against Toulon in Dublin [KO 3pm, Premier Sports].

There is competition at out-half in Leinster, but this probably wasn’t a major selection dilemma for Leo Cullen and Jacques Nienaber this week. Byrne has been their main man at out-half for much of the campaign, starting four of their six Champions Cup wins, including the two knock-out games against Edinburgh and Sale last month.

Sam Prendergast, who was the starting out-half as Leinster won the URC last season, has dropped down the pecking order during the current campaign, although he is back on the bench today and has already provided impact as a replacement on other occasions.

Byrne surely hoped that he would reach this position as Leinster’s first-choice out-half before now. He broke into the senior set-up with a good reputation as a talent from his schooldays at St Michael’s College and after two promising campaigns with the Ireland U20s.

He made his Leinster debut at the start of the 2019/20 campaign and by the end of the following season, he had won his first Ireland cap, with Andy Farrell giving him a debut off the bench against the USA. 

Farrell and Ireland were excited about Byrne’s potential and at that stage, he was seen as a potential successor to Leinster team-mate Johnny Sexton. Byrne got his second cap for Ireland in November 2021 when he was a replacement against Argentina.

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Yet the steep trajectory early on didn’t simply continue for Byrne, as is so often the case in sport. Injuries held Byrne back at inopportune times. And there was strong competition in Leinster from Sexton, Ross Byrne, and Ciarán Frawley. 

Byrne came into the 2023/24 season with clearly renewed intent, Sexton having retired, and he put together a strong run of form, earning a recall for Ireland in the process.

Byrne played twice off the bench as Ireland won the 2024 Six Nations and he must have felt that he was up and running as a senior out-half.

Yet that season ended in frustration for Harry as his older brother was preferred as the starting out-half in the Champions Cup knock-out games. Byrne had a tough day when Leinster were hammered by the Lions on their URC trip to South Africa in April.

He didn’t feature in the URC knock-out stages and wasn’t involved in the Champions Cup final against Toulouse.

Ahead of the 2024/25 campaign, a loan move to Connacht was floated to Byrne but he wanted to stay and fight for his place in Leinster. 

Yet he barely featured in the opening half of the season, playing just over 50 minutes in four replacement appearances. By the turn of the year, he was in Bristol on loan. 

That move went well for Byrne as he played 11 games for Pat Lam’s side and got a call-up to the Ireland A squad when they played against England A in Bristol.

Byrne returned to Leinster last summer refreshed and, with Ross having moved on, determined to take control. He picked up where he left off in Bristol, impressed for Ireland A against Spain in November, and pushed his way into the hotseat.

A recall to the senior Ireland squad followed for this year’s Six Nations and though Byrne didn’t get a fifth Test cap, head coach Farrell has been quick to praise his resurgence. 

All of this leaves Byrne in Leinster’s number 10 shirt today as they look to get the job done and earn a return to the Champions Cup final.

“He’s been great for us,” said Leinster captain Caelan Doris yesterday.

“He probably grew up quite a bit with the few months in Bristol last year and going away to a different city by yourself forces you to grow a bit, and we’ve seen that in how he’s come back.

“He leads the week very well, understands the game very well and how we want to play. And he’s another voice in driving things. It’s great to have him in the form he’s in.”

Leinster centre Garry Ringrose stressed this week that they’re lucky to have a few “world-class 10s” in Byrne, Prendergast, and Frawley.

Head coach Cullen said Byrne has simply delivered performances that have kept him in the number 10 shirt, while Leinster wing Tommy O’Brien said he has always known that the out-half had the ability to succeed.

“We would have played a lot of 20s together,” said O’Brien. “I would have always known him as an unbelievable rugby brain, really, really skillful.

“Probably similar to myself, sometimes he just couldn’t get his body fully right, but the Byrne brothers are some of the best rugby brains you’re ever going to know. Coming in and seeing from Ross, and Harry loves the game just as much as Ross, and the conversations they would have, so the level that they think about the game is incredible.

“He’s benefited from getting an idea of what it’s like away from here, learning a couple of things that teams do differently, but also then coming back and getting that second chance, he said, has been a bit like, ‘Wow, I didn’t realise how much maybe I loved Leinster until I left.’

“And then he’s like, ‘Jeez, this actually means so much to me. It’s almost like you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.’”