The teams have been announced for the Ulster v Leinster Women’s Interprovincial match which takes place tomorrow night at City of Armagh RFC.
For some unfathomable reason, the game kicks off two and a half hours after the U18 match at the same venue and with a ridiculously late kick off time of 7pm, it’s unlikely many will hang around for this one.
Ulster lost their opening match 38 – 12 to Munster in Cork last weekend and Leinster romped home 34 – 6 against Connacht in Dublin, leaving the current standings as follows.
| TEAM | PL | W | PD | BP | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leinster Women | 1 | 1 | 28 | 1 | 5 |
| Munster Women | 1 | 1 | 26 | 1 | 5 |
| Ulster Women | 1 | 0 | (26) | 0 | 0 |
| Connacht Women | 1 | 0 | (28) | 0 | 0 |
Both teams have made wholesale changes.
Ulster bring in Kelly McCormill, Diane Ramsey, Megan Brodie and Stacey Lea Kennedy to the starting line up with Aishling O’Connell, Storm Cobain and Lucinda Kinghan looking to make their first appearance this season from the bench.
Leinster have swapped out their front five and are bringing in two uncapped players Anna Doyle (Tullow) and Judy Bobbett (Blackrock) though they have retained some of the big hitters on the bench.
Unfortunately the teams are coming at selection from two entirely different places. Leinster are having a look at their squad depth while Ulster are still rotating the squad until they find a selection that will bring them that all important competitive win, something that has eluded them for 19 games now.
A touch of extra spice in this match is supplied in the form of last season’s Ulster Women’s Captain Larissa Muldoon running out in the blue of Leinster against her former teammates.
Still a FRU Favourite, Muldoon’s presence will give us a good measure of the progress of the talented Vicky Irwin as the pair go head to head at out half and it’s a personal battle I’m looking forward to. Circumstances have denied Irwin many chance’s to showcase her talents and I hope she takes this opportunity with both hands.
The teams for tomorrow are as follows.
| ULSTER | LEINSTER | |
|---|---|---|
| Ella Durkan | 15 | Grace Miller |
| Fiona Tuite | 14 | Anna Doyle * |
| Kelly McCormill | 13 | Elise O’Byrne White |
| Maeve Liston | 12 | Sene Naoupu |
| Diane Ramsey | 11 | Meabh O’Brien |
| Vicky Irwin | 10 | Larissa Muldoon |
| Kathryn Dane | 9 | Molly Scuffil McCabe |
| Megan Brodie | 1 | Christy Haney |
| Stacey Lea Kennedy | 2 | Lisa Callan |
| Ilse Van Staden | 3 | Katie O’Dwyer |
| Hannah Beattie | 4 | Judy Bobbett * |
| Keelin Brady | 5 | Daisy Earle |
| Beth Cregan | 6 | Jeamie Deacon |
| Neve Jones | 7 | Rachel Horan |
| Lauren Maginnes | 8 | Niamh Ní Dhroma |
| Aishling O’Connell | 16 | Jennie Finlay |
| Shannon Heapes | 17 | Lindsay Peat |
| Chloe McIlwaine | 18 | Linda Djougang |
| Katie Hetherington | 19 | Hannah O’Connor |
| Storm Cobain | 20 | Alison Coleman |
| Peita McAlister | 21 | Ailsa Hughes |
| Jemma Jackson | 22 | Megan Williams |
| Lucinda Kinghan | 23 | Michelle Claffey |
As we said in our series preview we are not looking for Ulster to win all their games but we are expecting to see a gradual improvement across the series.
Unfortunately the bar was set pretty low last week with something of a haphazard performance last week against Munster as a reasonable first half quickly deteriorated in the second period.