Ulster squad for Bath

Another big afternoon expected for Stevie Ferris. Picture from rugbypicture.co.uk

The Ulster Squad from which the starting XV and replacements to play Bath this Saturday at The Rec in Round 4 of the Heineken Cup will be selected, has been named.

The team will be named on Friday.

ULSTER SQUAD FORWARDS: Tom Court, Declan Fitzpatrick, Paddy McAllister, Bryan Young, BJ Botha, Nigel Brady, Andi Kyriacou, Tim Barker, Dan Tuohy, Johann Muller, Ryan Caldwell, Willie Faloon, Pedrie Wannenburg, Stephen Ferris, Chris Henry, Robbie Diack.

ULSTER SQUAD BACKS: Adam D’Arcy, David McIlwaine, Jamie Smith, Simon Danielli, Andrew Trimble, Paddy Wallace, Nevin Spence, Ian Whitten, Ian Humphreys, Niall O’Connor, Ruan Pienaar, Paul Marshall.

It’ll be interesting to see what sort of team David Humphreys, ops, Brian McLaughlin picks this weekend. In reality the team picked last Saturday should have won a lot more comfortably and could probably do a job at the Rec, but by the same token they could have lost and they did take a bit of a physical battering with Wannenburg and Ferris in particular being double teamed throughout.

There are two options – keep it tight like Saturday and kick  the points or look to run round them and score a few tries. If it’s the former I’d basically go for the same team but would start with O’Connor to give a bit more consistency and to kick long. If it’s the latter I’d go with Humphreys and add Faloon and Diack to the back row with Henry dropping out and Wannenburg benching .

It’s an interesting conundrum as Ulster could top the group by grinding out three wins from here on in. However, even with a loss at Ulster, Biarritz could still come out top picking up a couple more bonus points including a losing bonus at Ravenhill.

Myself I think it’s time to start and open things up and maximise our attacking potential so I’d go with Humphreys to start along with Faloon and Diack. I suspect though that we’ll see something different.

FRU XXIII: (1-15) Court, Brady, Botha, Muller, Tuohy, Ferris, Faloon Diack, Pienaar, Humphreys, Danielli, Wallace, Spence, Trimble, D’Arcy. (16-23) Kyriacou, Young, McAllister, Barker, Wannenburg, Marshall, Whitten, Smith.