Castres v Leinster: Teams

Leinster centre Brian O'Driscoll faces a late fitness test ahead of Friday's Heineken Cup clash against Castres.

O'Driscoll hobbled off towards the end of the home fixture against the French side, but the Leinster staff are keen to give the Irish captain as much time as possible to shake off the problem.

Should he fail to recover in time Felipe Contepomi will move up from the bench, with Fergus McFadden filling Contepomi's void.

In the pack, Malcolm O'Kelly continues his second row partnership with Devin Toner, who was the Heineken man-of-the-match in the 33-3 victory over Castres at the RDS last Saturday. Shane Jennings returns from injury to don the number seven jersey and the fit-again Isa Nacewa has also been named on the bench.

"Castres will be playing with a different team this week, though we have done analysis on them for the last five or six games before this already," Leinster's technical coach Alan Gaffney said.

"So we're pretty much aware of the abilities of each of the players without them announcing their team.

Addressed

"The two nines play differently and we understand that. So we've got to adopt and adapt to the side that they pick.

"There's no doubt that we probably played the game a bit narrow at the weekend. And I think we have been guilty of that. That's something that we have addressed again.

"We have got the ability, we train and we know what we want to achieve. Sometimes we're not backing ourselves to do things, but sometimes we have to set up certain plays and patterns.

"Traditionally speaking, every play we play is one we want to have as a strike play. We put a few things together (in the last game) that we were happy with, but not enough."

Castres have rung the changes as they look to get their first win in Europe this season. The three changes in the backs see Thomas Bouquié start at full-back, Phil Christophers named on the left wing and French cap Sébastien Tillous-Borde getting the nod at scrum-half.

In the pack All Black Chris Masoe comes into the back row, and will wear the openside jersey, captain Lionel Nallet is back in the second row, with the final two changes seeing Daniel Saayman and Akvsenti Giorgadze starting at tighthead and hooker respectively.

Castres: 15 Thomas Bouquié, 14 Charles Sika, 13 Steve Kefu, 12 Lionel Mazars, 11 Philip Christophers, 10 Anthony Lagardere, 9 Sébastien Tillous-Borde, 8 Florian Faure, 7 Chris Masoe, 6 Lei Tomiki, 5 Lionel Nallet, 4 Joe Tekori, 3 Daniel Saayman, 2 Akvsenti Giorgadze, 1 Gideon Lensing.
Replacements: 16 Mathieu Bonello, 17 Luc Ducalcon, 18 Rodrigo Capo Ortega, 19 Kirill Kulemin, 20 Kevin Senio, 21 Thomas Sanchou, 22 Matthieu Bourret.

Leinster: 15 Girvan Dempsey, 14 Simon Keogh, 13 Brian O'Driscoll, 12 Luke Fitzgerald, 11 Rob Kearney, 10 Jonathan Sexton, 9 Chris Whitaker (c), 8 Jamie Heaslip, 7 Shane Jennings, 6 Rocky Elsom, 5 Malcolm O'Kelly, 4 Devin Toner, 3 CJ Van Der Linde, 2 Bernard Jackman, 1 Stan Wright.
Replacements: 16 Brian Blaney, 17 Cian Healy, 18 Trevor Hogan, 19 Sean O'Brien, 20 Chris Keane, 21 Felipe Contepomi/Fergus McFadden, 22 Isa Nacewa.