It's team selection day at FRU Headquarters!
Brian McLaughlin has named a provisional 30 man squad ahead of Ulster’s trip to play Glasgow on Friday.
The Ulster management have taken the decision to rest Stephen Ferris and Rory Best due to the large number of games they’ve played in recent months.
Luke Marshall (jaw) and Jerry Cronin (neck) have returned to training after a number of weeks on the sidelines and may be in contention for some game time this weekend. Callum Black could make his competitive debut for the Province after recovering from a neck injury.
Both Ulster and Glasgow emerged from the opening rounds of the Heineken Cup with one win and a loss. They will now turn their attentions to the PRO12, where the Scottish outfit currently occupy one of the fourth playoff spot. Ulster sit in 7th position, 5 points adrift of Friday’s opponents.
Glasgow’s five game winning run in all competitions came to a halt against Leinster in the Heineken Cup on Sunday. The Warriors have won five of their last six matches in the RaboDirect PRO12 tournament, and have been victorious in their last three encounters at Firhill.
The Ulstermen will approach this game with confidence, having won five of their last six matches against Scottish opponents. The two side met in the reverse fixture earlier in the season, with Ulster claiming a 28-14 win at Ravenhill courtesy of tries from Paul Marshall, Darren Cave and Chris Henry.
Forwards: Paddy McAllister, Callum Black, Tom Court, Adam Macklin, Declan Fitzpatrick, Jerry Cronin, Andi Kyriacou, Nigel Brady, Lewis Stevenson, Johann Muller, Dan Tuohy, Tim Barker, Neil McComb, Michael McComish, Pedrie Wannenburg, Willie Faloon, Chris Henry, Robbie Diack
Backs: Paul Marshall, Ian Porter, Ian Humphreys, Paddy Jackson, Nevin Spence, Luke Marshall, Ian Whitten, Darren Cave, Craig Gilroy, Simon Danielli, Andrew Trimble, Adam D’Arcy
Unavailable due to injury: Paddy Wallace, Ruan Pienaar, Jared Payne.
Unavailable due to player management: Stephen Ferris, Rory Best
Unavailable due to being lost in transit: John Afoa, Stefan Terblanche
It’ll be interesting to see what they come out with tomorrow for this game as, despite the absolute hoking they got from Leinster at the weekend, the Glasgow players are no mugs and will be keen to make a statement back on home turf.
As Ulster only really started to show some continuity with ball in hand in their defeat against Leinster I would keep changes to a minimum and only introduce additional players from the bench throughout the game if Ulster are performing well.
If performing poorly it’s my reckoning that they need game time to work on the issues, but of course this has it’s limits! I’d therefore be going for pretty much the same side that started against Leicester with the following changes.
Kyriacou in for Best. Black to replace McAllister on the bench.
Diack on for Ferris – Diack at 8, Wannenburg at 6 and Henry at 7 with Faloon to come on at 7 for half an hour (he might even come on earlier as I suspect we’ll get turned over at the breakdown fairly frequently with no Best).
I’d keep the backs pretty much the same as I thought they showed a distinct improvement even though many of the brethren are complaining about a lack of imagination on Saturday. I would counter that space was so limited, with both sets of backs frequently offside, and the game quite a bit pacier than other games off late, that they didn’t have the speed of thought or deed to execute as they wanted.
The combinations need a couple more run outs, and that’s run outs where they are getting consistent ball, to fine tune their timings and if the step wise improvement we witnessed from the Clermont to the Leicester game can be repeated they could be very exciting indeed. Should the game be decided before the final 20 I would like to see the combination of Porter, Jackson and Marshall get a run together though, unless either Danielli or D’Arcy is dropped, I can’t see Marshal getting on the bench.
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