Connacht team named to face Ulster<\/p>\n
Connacht Rugby welcome provincial rivals Ulster to the Sportsground on Saturday (kick off 14:40) and head coach Pat Lam has made three personnel changes to the team named last week.<\/p>\n
As Bundee Aki makes a welcome return in midfield, there is shift in the back line as Robbie Henshaw, Danie Poolman and Tiernan O’Halloran all move out one place. <\/p>\n
Craig Ronaldson has been handed the reins at outhalf for his 11th start this season. <\/p>\n
Up front, George Naoupu represents the only change to the pack and comes in at Number 8 to allow captain John Muldoon to revert to blindside flanker. <\/p>\n
The Galway-born duo of Ronan Loughney and Eoin McKeon have both returned from injury to take a place on the bench while Ultan Dillane, John Cooney and Miah Nikora are also additions to the match day squad. <\/p>\n
Commenting on the team selection and the upcoming game, Pat Lam said:<\/p>\n
“We have no doubt that Saturday will be a massive challenge against a quality Ulster side who have been up near the top of the table for the whole season. With their 6 Nations stars back they’ll be coming here all guns blazing as they vie for a home semi-final. <\/p>\n
“But we are back on our Sportsground for the first time in six weeks and we’re in a really exciting place in the league. We have put ourselves in a position where we still have so much to play for at this time of the season. A top six finish is still very much in our hands. These are the types of pressure games that you want this young group of players to be playing in and we know we need to put in a big team performance tomorrow.”<\/p>\n
Connacht team to face Ulster <\/p>\n
15. Tiernan O’Halloran<\/p>\n
14. Danie Poolman<\/p>\n
13. Robbie Henshaw<\/p>\n
12. Bundee Aki<\/p>\n
11. Matt Healy<\/p>\n
10. Craig Ronaldson<\/p>\n
9. Kieran Marmion<\/p>\n
1. Denis Buckley<\/p>\n
2. Tom McCartney<\/p>\n
3. Rodney Ah You<\/p>\n
4. Quinn Roux<\/p>\n
5. Aly Muldowney<\/p>\n
6. John Muldoon (captain)<\/p>\n
7. Eoghan Masterson<\/p>\n
8. George Naoupu <\/p>\n
Replacements:<\/p>\n
16. Shane Delahunt<\/p>\n
17. Ronan Loughney <\/p>\n
18. Finlay Bealham<\/p>\n
19. Ultan Dillane <\/p>\n
20. Eoin McKeon<\/p>\n
21. John Cooney<\/p>\n
22. Miah Nikora<\/p>\n
23. Darragh Leader <\/p>\n
Unavailable\/Injured: Jason Harris-Wright, Sean Henry, Nathan White, Michael Swift, Mata Fifita, Willie Faloon, Jake Heenan, Dave McSharry, Conor Finn, Fionn Carr, Mils Muliaina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Connacht team named to face Ulster Connacht Rugby welcome provincial rivals Ulster to the Sportsground on Saturday (kick off 14:40) and head coach Pat Lam has made three personnel changes to the team named last week. As Bundee Aki makes a welcome return in midfield, there is shift in the back line as Robbie Henshaw, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1836],"tags":[33,1164,5,152,600,25],"class_list":["post-5740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","tag-connacht","tag-face","tag-named","tag-team","tag-to","tag-ulster"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5741,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740\/revisions\/5741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}