Oct 16,2024
Connacht head coach Pete Wilkins will have close to a full deck to choose from when they welcome Leinster to the Dexcom Stadium in the BKT United Rugby Championship this Saturday.
The province came through last week's bruising Interpro away to Ulster without picking up any fresh knocks, while back-row Shamus Hurley-Langton is in contention to return from a shoulder issue.
It leaves out-half JJ Hanrahan and prop Sam Illo as the only two long-term absentees for the province, who have also been boosted by the return of their Emerging Ireland contingent.
Wilkins had been without first-team regulars Jack Aungier, Darragh Murray and Sean Jansen for the last three weeks, as well as Hugh Gavin, Chay Mullins and Matthew Devine, but all six have returned to training and are available for selection this weekend.
The province are almost certain to be without versatile forward Josh Murphy this weekend though. The former Leinster man was shown a straight red card in the 71st minute of Saturday’s 32-27 defeat to Ulster, following a dangerous off the ball tackle on James McCormick.
Murphy is set to learn his fate at a disciplinary hearing this week, and it looks unlikely that the province will contest the sending off.
"We’re presuming that he’s unavailable at this point and we’ll find out for how long after that," the Connacht coach said.
"The red looked nasty enough on the replay. I can understand the decision-making from the match officials around it.
"I think Josh was anticipating being part of a tackle that actually never came his way, more so than he was looking at how to intentionally make that kind of contact with someone. So, we’ll await the verdict around that piece.
"Certainly it doesn’t help us when you’re level scores and you’re trying to win a game in the last ten minutes. That said, we had some chances and as I said after the game, the way our two previous results had gone against Sharks and Scarlets, even down to 14 men, I fully believed that we had a really good chance of getting over the line.
"But we weren’t good enough to take it and credit to Ulster for that."
Saturday’s defeat was Connacht’s fourth Interpro loss in a row, and followed a similar pattern to their 33-31 reversal against Munster in the opening round where they were edged in another high scoring contest.
In each of their two derby defeats this season, however, the province have picked up two bonus-points, which has contributed to them being fifth in the table.
"I don't think we have an issue (closing out games), I think we have played two really good Irish teams.
"The nature of our Interpros, they tend to be the toughest going around compared to some of the other nations, so I don't think we have an issue with it.
"I think to pick up four points from two Interpros, it's four points we wouldn't have got last year. Would we like to have won one of them, yes. Would we like to have won both, absolutely. We're getting better, but we're not there yet.
"I think every game feels like a must-win, particularly an Interpro, home and away. In the context of our season I don't think it's a must-win [against Leinster], but I think the nature of our performance is incredibly important.
"Based on the progress we want to make, and based on the quality of the opposition I think we know we'll be judged on performance first of all, and if we can get that right there are competition points and a result that's entirely possible for us. That's our mindset in the group," he added.
