ANDY FRIEND SAID that their two-match trip to South Africa is a chance to get ready for next season.
He has not brought any players who are departing in the summer to South Africa for their games against the Lions this week and the Sharks the following Saturday.
All of the 28-man touring squad are nailed down for next season with the exception of Tiernan O’Halloran, but it’s expected a contract extension for the long-serving full-back will be ironed out soon.
Connacht have an outside chance of qualification for the knockout stages and the Champions Cup, while Friend has also set a target of them becoming the first side in the URC to have a clean sweep against the four South African sides.
“Our message coming over is let’s be the first team to have a clean sweep against the South African sides. No one has done it to date,” said Friend.
“We had a good win against the Bulls, a good win against the Stormers. It is going to be tough. There have been 16 games played over here (by European sides) and there has only been one win, so it’s going to be a tall ask.
“We are not coming over here just to fulfil two fixtures. We need to keep ourselves winning, to keep ourselves in the hunt and we need to prove to ourselves that we are worthy of victory and the game-style we have got can actually get us wins. And we have seen that throughout the course of the year but not consistently enough.
“And it is about giving other players an opportunity. You can see with the touring squad we have brought over here. There are players who we know are moving on next year and we have not brought them. We want to invest in our future, we are investing in the people who are going to be here next year.
“There are others who I wish I could have brought over, who have been knocking on doors but have not had a great deal of opportunity .
“We are also conscious that we are still in the hunt, definitely, but we are more about having two performances here and one more against Zebre when we get home that will actually solidify the season that we had in terms of wanting to be more respected and making sure that we are putting our game-style out there,” added Friend.
