Leo Cullen happy to continue with Leinster co-captains

Leo Cullen is happy to continue with Garry Ringrose and James Ryan as Leinster co-captains despite a run-in with the referee in last weekend's Investec Champions Cup win over La Rochelle.

The Ireland internationals were named as skippers last month with the vacancy having arisen following Johnny Sexton’s retirement.

Matthew Carley oversaw a feisty round-one clash between the back-to-back champions and beaten finalists in Stade Marcel-Deflandre on Sunday, with players from both sides repeatedly appealing for decisions and talking to the official.

In particular, Carley lost his patience with lock Ryan in the first half and informed him that he would just deal with Ringrose from then on.

"Hopefully it was a once off," said Cullen when asked if there was an argument for naming one captain on match day.

"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 have respect for the officials and let them do their job but at certain times you have to be able to point things out.

"Trying to get the right sweet spot there is always the challenge, isn’t it, the art of captaincy really.

"There was so much going on in that game which we were frustrated with across the board as you can imagine; I am sure you have seen some of the footage.

"We will talk to our co-captains every week about that sort of interaction, yeah.

"So, it's understandable why he's frustrated and it's trying to get that message across.

"But we want to be able