PRO12: Teams for Edinburgh v Ulster

The flying Stefan makes his first start as full back. Picture Darren Kidd|Presseye

Ulster have been boosted by the return of a number of key players to the match day 23 for Friday’s trip to play Edinburgh at Murrayfield in the RaboDirect PRO12 (kick off 7.30pm).

Brian McLaughlin welcomes back his international contingent, with Andrew Trimble, Stephen Ferris, Tom Court and Rory Best all returning to the starting XV having missed the Inter-provincial games over the festive period.Trimble’s return sees Craig Gilroy shift to the left wing and Stefan Terblanche move back to fullback, with Adam D’Arcy the player making way. Ian Whitten and Darren Cave again form the centre partnership, while Ruan Pienaar and Ian Humphreys continue as half backs.Best and Court are included in the front row in place of Andi Kyriacou and the injured Paddy McAllister. They are joined by All Black prop John Afoa, who picked up the man of the match award in the 33-17 win over Munster last weekend. Captain Johann Muller and Dan Tuohy once again combine in the second row. Stephen Ferris’ inclusion on the blindside flank results in Chris Henry moving to the openside berth, while Pedrie Wannenburg remains at number 8. Willie Faloon has to settle for a place on the bench. McLaughlin adds:

 It’s a crucial game for us, not only in terms of the PRO12, but also with Europe in mind next week. Edinburgh have been playing well this season and like to play a good brand of rugby, but we will be looking to put in a quality performance and getting the result.

Training has been excellent all week. It’s been great having the internationals back, including Paddy (Wallace). It really gives us a boost coming into such important games and they will bring a bit extra to the team tomorrow night. They’re itching to get involved again and we are looking forward to having them back in.

Adam D’Arcy has been playing very well over the past few matches but Stefan has a bit more experience and we wanted to give him an opportunity to impress at fullback. With Andrew coming back in it gave us an opportunity to rotate a bit and make use of the strong squad we’ve assembled.

Ulster (15-9): Stefan Terblanche,  Andrew Trimble, Darren Cave, Ian Whitten, Craig Gilroy, Ian Humphreys, Ruan Pienaar. (1-8): Tom Court, Rory Best, John Afoa, Johann Muller (capt), Dan Tuohy, Stephen Ferris, Chris Henry, Pedrie Wannenburg. (16-23): Andi Kyriacou, Callum Black, Adam Macklin, Louis Stevenson, Willie Faloon, Paul Marshall, Paddy Wallace, Adam D’Arcy.

Edinburgh (15-9): Chris Paterson, Tom Brown, Nick De Luca, James King, Tim Visser, Phil Godman, Greig Laidlaw. (1-8): Allan Jacobsen, Ross Ford, Geoff Cross, Sean Cox, Esteban Lozada, Stuart McInally, Roddy Grant, Netani Talei. (16-23): Alun Walker, Kyle Traynor, Jack Gilding, Grant Gilchrist, Alan MacDonald, Chris Leck, Matt Scott, Jim Thompson

Yet more rotation by McLaughlin. Don’t know why Terblanche couldn’t have been tried out at full back for the game away to Leinster and then we could have been going into this game knowing who our best full back is – and that would be Peter Nelson, just a pity he’s injured!  :-D

Ulster need to lay down some sort of marker in this game against Edinburgh and  I would like to think that they would try to look at attacking options other than bang it up the middle and try to work Ferris on a one on one. We did work two tries against a fairly poor Munster and a very good one against Leinster but these weren’t typical games and it’ll be interesting to see what Ulster can come up with.

In fact,  irrespective of the score, I would take Ferris off with thirty to go, Henry to 6, Faloon t0 7 and Wallace on for Whitten to see if we can play any attacking moves without the big man, in a proper competitive match.

More than anything though, I’d like to see a sustained, concerted, effort from the forwards  at the breakdown. This has been far and away the worst aspect of play this season and I can’t remember a match where Ulster haven’t been bullied in the contact area for substantial periods of the game. A bit more dog is definitely required over the full 80 minutes, but more importantly the forwards need to pull things together as a pack not a collection of individuals. Something we only seem to find for our home Heineken Cup matches.

I expect Ulster to win this one, and they should win it even if playing their fairly limited game. However it would be nice to see a concerted effort from the boys up front to give the backs the opportunity to show us what they are capable off.