LAST UPDATE | 19 Sep 2022
IRELAND INTERNATIONALS BUNDEE Aki, Mack Hansen and Finlay Bealham have all been named in the 28-man Connacht squad that will travel to South Africa today.
Jarrad Butler is also included having recovered from injury, but Connacht captain Jack Carty misses out as he continues his rehab following wrist surgery.
Four players who were selected in the Emerging Ireland squad also make the cut – Caolin Blade, Sam Illo, Cian Prendergast and Dylan Tierney-Martin. However, they will link up with the Emerging Ireland squad in Bloemfontein following Connacht’s UTC clash with the Stormers on Saturday. The province will fly out more players later in the week ahead of the 30 September fixture against the Bulls.
After losing 36-10 to Ulster on Saturday, Connacht now face the Stormers and the Bulls over the next fortnight. As if opening up with away days against three of last year’s URC semi-finalists wasn’t hard enough, Connacht then have to play Munster and Leinster. No other team faces an opening series of games as difficult as they do.
With this in mind, the return of their Irish players will be vital to their chances of success in South Africa.
“We have a few coming in for the South African trip,” said Connacht’s director of rugby, Andy Friend. “We have got our Ireland players back and some of the boys we didn’t have tonight (against Ulster).
“The next performance is everything now for us. We knew anyway we were up against tough teams, Ulster away, Stormers away, Bulls away, but at the same time we saw that as a real challenge for us. We still see it as a challenge.
“We are not going to run away from that; we knew exactly what we are getting ourselves in for, that was not a performance we were proud of tonight. It is up to us to change that and we go to Cape Town now to try and do that.”
The coach insisted he wants a significant improvement on Saturday’s outing.
“We have some pretty high desires of what we want to achieve this year. We want to make the play-offs but we’re going to have to fix it and fix it pretty quickly.
“It’s the opening game of the season, we wanted to put on a good performance, give ourselves confidence, but we sit here at the moment and we know we have work to do.”
Connacht squad:
Forwards (17)
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