Ulster assistant coach Willie Faloon confirms that Stuart McCloskey, Tom O’Toole and Nick Timoney will be available for Saturday’s game against Munster

Sounds like we will go strong for munster and rest front line players for Zebra.  If Stuart starts, and no sign of hume,  Carson at 13 again?  I do wonder why they originally had McIlroy at 13 last week if Carson was fit.  On the 42 podcast Murray Kinsella said he would have liked to seen McIlroy at 13 as he thinks that attacking 13s is the way rugby is going now.

Munster have a good few injuries at the moment but have still played well in there first 2 games.  Having said that they have racing at home next week, so I guess they will send their 2nd/3rds?

Team announcements tomorrow will be interesting.  I like McIlroy at 13.  He seems an intelligent player with good attacking instincts but maybe not the experience to be totally convincing in defence at the position.  Big Stu at 12, McIlroy 13, with 2 out of Stockdale/Ward/Baloucounce on the wings with Benson at 15 would be very interesting.  To be honest as it is an inter-pro just about anything could happen, but a home win (of any sort) would satisfy me.

1. Eric O’Sullivan
2. Tom Stewart C
3. Keynan Knox
4. Ben Donnell
5. Eli Sny­man
6. Cormac Izuchukwu
7. Nick Timoney
8. Ju­arno Augustus
9. Nathan Doak
10. Jack Murphy
11. Jacob Stockdale
12. Stuart McCloskey
13. Jamie Benson
14. Rob Baloucoune
15. Ethan McIlroy

REPLACEMENTS
16. Henry Walker
17. Tom O’Toole
18. Tom McAllister
19. James McNabney
20. David McCann
21. Matthew Devine
22. Jake Flannery
23. Chay Mullins

Strong team, but surprised Zack dropped completely and Mullins on the bench instead.

Munster

1. Jeremy Loughman
2. Marnus van der Merwe
3. Kieran Brookes
4. Evan O’Connell
5. Tadhg Beirne (C)
6. Jack O’Donoghue
7. Alex Kendellen
8. Gavin Coombes
9. Craig Casey
10. JJ Hanrahan
11. Seán O’Brien
12. Dan Kelly
13. Alex Nankivell
14. Shane Daly
15. Ben O’Connor

Replacements

16. Diarmuid Barron
17. Josh Wycherley
18. Jack Aungier
19. Tom Ahern
20. John Gleeson
21. Ben O’Donovan
22. Charlie O’Shea
23. John Hodnett

Looks like that’s the strongest team Munster could put out! Bring it on!

Looks like a couple of decent teams.  I’m not convinced yet by Donnell in the second row, Synman looks decent though.  Is Sheridan in injured?  Thought he could be an extra forward option in a 6-2 split, given the versatility of Benson and Flannery. The latter didn’t convince off the bench at 10 llast week, but perhaps an inter-pro isn’t the best environment for Benson to be given his first game at 10.  But if Murphy has to go off could we see Benson to 10, McIlroy to 13 and Flannery to 15 or is that too much disruption?  Perhaps that’s why I’m not a top line coach … 

Taxi for Murphy. Disgrace of a performance

Can’t fault them for drama this season, I don’t know if my nerves can take this anymore.  We where in the family end, so unfortunately most of the match happened at the other end ( bar stockdales try) so hard to see what was going on, I’ll have to watch again to form a better opinion  on the match.  But a recurring them was knock on, scrum, penalty.  We got to get the scrum sorted, it was better in the last 20mins ( thank god) but we can’t have that many ball handling errors and not scrum.

McIlroy was good again and was unlucky not to have won more restarts.  McCann was great once again

A truly dreadful first half.  The scrum started so badly it couldn’t get worse.  The breakdown was terrible both in us not contesting the Munster ball and then not protecting our own.  Ok, some of that came from piss poor decisions ending up with taking contact unsupported.  If Munster had been decent they would have put the game truly out reach in that first 40, but their attack, bar the Kelly line break, was predictable and the scores came from scrum/penalty/lineout/maul.  And so many penalties.

The second half was better, but then most of the Munster team had given up and seemed on autopilot.  I can’t see either team bothering the later stages of any competitions without significant improvements.

26/27 aggregate score while Devine is on the pitch: 62 – 21

26/27 aggregate score while Devine is not on the pitch: 24 – 72

Very similar to the Edinburgh (non) performance. Breakdown tactics seemed very passive in first half though McCann made a lot of things look better. I’m not one to start hammering at the coaches too early but in both of these home games the whole team has seen mentally disengaged from the start (and then improved later, which is bizarre).  The coaches need to look at the pre-game preparation. 

Where was Bello? Is he injured already? Hope his minutes weren’t being managed so he could play against Zebre! 

@ulsterman don’t know about him specifically but they seem to have been deliberately cycling through most of the squad in these early games.

Speaking of which I’d like to see Benson at 10. I don’t think Jack Murphy has been in great form in the early going (but still playing 80 minutes every time) and we need to know our options. 

Posted by: @forestial

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@ulsterman don’t know about him specifically but they seem to have been deliberately cycling through most of the squad in these early games.

 

Speaking of which I’d like to see Benson at 10. I don’t think Jack Murphy has been in great form in the early going (but still playing 80 minutes every time) and we need to know our options. 

Yeah I would like to have see what he can do at 10 ( Zebra would be a good game to see that),  but its unfortunate that Moore,  Postlethwaite and Hume all injured meaning he was/is need in the centre.  

That’s an interesting stat about Divine, but there were other factors involved