CONNACHT HAVE FLOWN hooker Eoin de Buitlear and flanker Sean O’Brien out to South Africa to bolster the squad ahead of Saturday’s crucial URC clash against the Lions in Johannesburg.

Dave Heffernan and Sean Jansen, both of whom came off injured in the bonus point win over the Stormers, are being given as much time as possible to recover but cover has been brought in from Galway.

Meanwhile, centre Cathal Forde has been ruled out with a wrist injury picked up in the first half of that victory. He will be fully assessed when the squad return after the weekend.

Connacht are currently ninth in the table and one point outside the top half but the shock win over the Stormers, which extended their winning run in the league to six games, ranks as one of their finest ever.

Lineout and maul coach John Muldoon, who has been part of most of Connacht’s biggest days in the professional era, agreed and said the win in Cape Town was particularly special.

“I think if you look at some of the bigger days in Connacht’s history, certainly some of the bigger away days in Connacht’s history, it’s certainly up there,” said the man who captained them to the 2016 Pro 12 title.

“It’s certainly up there. As you can imagine, there were a few supporters over and some of them managed to find their way onto the field and even found their way into the dressing room. It was some of the close family, which was actually really nice for them and really nice for the lads themselves to have some of their parents in there.

“There was a great buzz in the changing room afterwards. Speaking to some of the younger players, they felt that was the highest and the best game they’ve ever been involved in. They were asking a few questions afterwards going, if that was the energy of this dressing room, what was it like when you won something? What other days? Obviously, there was some of them talking about years back when we won over in Toulouse, etc.

“For all those young lads to go out and perform the way they did, it bodes well for the future. Certainly, from our point of view, this year it’s certainly been up there. Over the last couple of years as a coach, it’s certainly been up there.”

Muldoon said the key thing now was to back up the result when they travel up to Highveld later this week, having opted to remain in Cape Town for most of the tour.

“It’s been a great tour. We’ve really enjoyed it, but we’re only halfway there.

We need to go out and make sure that over the last couple of years, we’ve not been able to back it up the second week. So we need to go out and back it up now,” added Muldoon.