There will be no St Patrick’s Day celebrations for Stuart Lancaster and his Connacht players this year.
The province’s boss said that with a game on Friday, there will be no day off to join the festivities in advance of their fixture against Ulster.
“With a game on Friday, Tuesday is important,” Lancaster explained, as he eyes up a possible sixth win after a solid bonus-point victory over Scarlets at Dexcom Stadium.
They will be helped with the expected return of their internationals Bundee Aki, Finlay Bealham, Billy Bohan, Darragh Murray and Cian Prendergast. In addition, Dave Heffernan, Shamus Hurley-Langton, Sam Illo and Matthew Devine have recovered from their respective injuries. Still to be assessed are Paul Boyle (calf), Sean Jansen (hip) and Denis Buckley (hamstring). However, Dylan Tierney-Martin (shoulder) and Sam Gilbert (ribs) are unavailable in addition to the longer-term absentees.
Lancaster heads to Belfast well aware of Ulster’s strength and depth, with Richie Murphy’s side third in the standings with eight wins from 12.
“They have a deserved top-four position at the moment,” Lancaster said. “The width of their game, work off the ball, quality of attack, their shapes defensively – well-organised and a good set piece.”
However, he believes there is a growing confidence in his Connacht team.
“We have a good group coming back in ourselves, and we’ve had some good performances recently, so we’ll go there with confidence, but with a lot of respect for what they’ve done.
“It’s a matter of hitting the right sweet spot between the cohesion and the confidence we’ve built, and selection in order to integrate those players.”
With a “few grey areas” from the weekend, Lancaster has not settled on his starting XV yet.
“We’ve held off on one or two positions – it’s that balance of reintegration and those players who have done more for us recently.”
Connacht’s interprovincial record this season is three losses from three, having lost to Ulster 24-29 at Dexcom, a two-point defeat away to Munster, and a walloping from Leinster.
“We’ve had two away games now in the interpros. I thought Munster was a game we could have won. Leinster wasn’t, although we played well until half-time.
“You’ve got to put Ulster at the same level as Leinster at the moment. And we know what happened in the game at the Aviva, so we need to be at our very best to beat them up there.
“They have a very strong record – unbeaten in some seven or eight games at home.”
