Brian McLaughlin has named a strong side for the home clash with Glasgow this Friday (kick off 7.05pm).
Chris Henry will captain the side from number 8 and is joined in the back row by the experienced Pedrie Wannenburg and Willie Faloon. Lewis Stevenson will make his first competitive appearance for Ulster and will partner Dan Tuohy in the second row. Jerry Cronin, Paddy McAllister and Andi Kyriacou make up Ulster’s front row.
Academy duo Conor Carey and Peter Nelson, as well as development player Adam Macklin, are named among the replacements so are in line for their first competitive appearance.
Nelson, in his first year out of school, has impressed in the pre-season friendly matches against Neath and Harlequins and will cover positions 11 to 15. Nineteen year old Carey has been playing club rugby for Ballymena and put in a number of excellent performances for the Ravens in the British & Irish Cup last year. Macklin also appeared for the Ravens but missed most of last season with an ankle injury.
Nigel Brady, Neil McComb, Ian Porter and Paddy Jackson are the other players to be named on the bench.
Ulster: (15-9) Adam D’Arcy, Craig Gilroy, Darren Cave, Nevin Spence, Ian Whitten, Ian Humphreys, Paul Marshall (1-8) Paddy McAllister, Andi Kyriacou, Jerry Cronin, Lewis Stevenson, Dan Tuohy, Pedrie Wannenburg, Willie Faloon, Chris Henry (capt). (16-22) Nigel Brady, Conor Carey, Adam Macklin, Neil McComb, Robbie Diack, Ian Porter, Paddy Jackson, Peter Nelson.
Unusually there is plenty of gung ho rhetoric from McLaughs in the press release for this one and he seems particularly pleased with last weeks performance
Against Harlequins we set our stall out, we wanted to show our fans what they can expect from us at Ravenhill this season. The key thing is that we build on what we did last weekend. We’re very pleased with the tempo that we played at; we’re pleased with the way that we were trying to play.
We’ve got to make sure we cross the whitewash on Friday night and do exactly the same, only better. It’s a matter now of proving we can do it in the heat of battle and in the heat of the competition.
and he is right in what he says though I think the start of the PRO 12 is going to be a lot tougher than most people think with plenty of young tyros across the teams looking to make a name for themselves.
Key to Ulster’s performance over the last two games, and lets not forget they took a bit of a beating in Bayonne, has been the second row partnership of Stevenson and McComb and I’m sort of a little disappointed that big Dan has been parachuted in to break up this paring.
Nothing wrong with Dan per-se but I’d I’ve liked to see how the other two performed in” the heat of battle”.
Aside from that no major quibbles with the team, I’m assuming Fitzpatrick and Black are crocked but I’d only have them benching anyway and it looks like Marshall and Annett are being given a chance to recover from their draining U20’s exertions over the summer.
If the front five continue to perform it should be a comfortable win for Ulster – now there’s a thing!
Corrections, comments or questions?