Ulster named a 26 man squad yesterday for this Friday’s match against Glasgow Warriors. KO 8:00pm.
The squad sees the welcome return of David Pollock to the seniors after a couple of controlled run outs for The Ravens. However the Autumn Internationals have taken their toll on the playing staff with Paddy Wallace, Stephen Ferris and BJ Botha joining Rory Best, Bryn Cunningham, Matt McCullough, Mark McCrea and Robbie Diack on the injury list. Andrew Trimble is rested as part of the D4 International Duty Treaty.
Forwards: Tom Court, Bryan Young, Declan Fitzpatrick, Adam Macklin, Justin Fitzpatrick, Andy Kyriacou, Nigel Brady, Ed O’Donoghue, Ryan Caldwell, Dan Tuohy, David Pollock, Willie Faloon, Chris Henry (Capt), Tamaiti Houra, Thomas Anderson. Backs: Clinton Schifcofske, Simon Danielli, Timoci Nagusa, Jonny Shiels, Niall O’Connor, Ian Humphreys, Darren Cave, Ian Whitten, Paul Marshall, Isaac Boss, Jamie Smith
The Ulster playing panel has looked a lot stronger this season but they’ll still need to be at their best to beat a resurgent Glasgow who are definitely targeting this game in their bid to make the end of season playoffs. They don’t however have many fond memories of last years trip to Ravenhill as flanker Kelly Brown states;
The game at Ravenhill was played in the worst conditions I have ever experienced.
The pitch was a swamp and there was a howling gale. To make matters worse we were not at full strength and we did not do ourselves justice.
But we are in good fettle for this one and although Ulster have been going well themselves we have already shown that we can win at difficult venues this season like Cardiff, so we can take confidence from that.
The target for this season is to make the play-offs and if we want to achieve that we need to be taking points from places like Ulster."
I’d still put Ulster as favourites and certainly the pack must realise that there is everything to play for for the remainder of the season given Ireland’s abysmal scrumming performances in the matches against young Australian and exhausted South African packs.
I’d certainly like to see the likely starting props of Court and Young getting a little bit angrier for the rest of the season. Both Court and Young are, in my opinion, great scrummagers but they consistently fail to turn their superior technique into outright domination and it’s here they need to improve if they’re going to take the next step up.
FRU 22.
(1-8) Court, Kyriacou, Young, O’Donoghue, Tuohy, Hours, Faloon, Henry. (9-15) Boss, Humphreys, Danielli, Whitten, Cave, Nagusa, Schifcofske. (16-22) Brady, D Fitzpatrick, Caldwell, Pollock, Marshall, O’Connor, Shiels.
Tickets are available on-line Click Here or via the Ravenhill Ticket Office (Mon – Thurs 9am – 5pm, Fri 9am – 4pm) and Line Ticket 02890 293 222 Option 2 (Mon – Fri 10am – 12noon.)
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