Ulster will play Leinster at Ravenhill in the PRO12 tomorrow night without arguably their two best players.
Earlier we brought you news of the Leinster team and it looks like Joe Schmidt is bringing a very tasty team to Belfast tomorrow night. We pondered if Brian McLaughlin would really want to win this one and stay in the hunt for a PRO12 play-off place or whether he would have one eye on the upcoming Heineken Cup semi-final against Edinburgh.
It seems the latter is playing on his mind as Irish internationals Rory Best and Stephen Ferris are not named in the match-day squad for tomorrow night’s game. Ulster will also line up without the suspended John Afoa and the injured Paul Marshall, who damaged his elbow in the act of scoring in last week’s defeat to Connacht. Dan Tuohy also sits this one out, with a slight neck injury.
But it is not all bad news for Ulster fans. Paddy Wallace, Ruan Pienaar and Andrew Trimble all return to the team and Tom Court moves across to his more familiar role at loosehead, with Declan Fitzpatrick making a welcome return at tighthead after five months on the sidelines.
Ulster team: S Terblanche; A Trimble, D Cave, P Wallace, C Gilroy; P Jackson, R Pienaar; T Court, N Brady, D Fitzpatrick; J Muller, L Stevenson; C Henry, W Faloon, P Wannenburg;
Replacements: A Kyricaou, P McAllister, A Macklin, N McComb, R Diack, I Porter, I Humphreys, A D’Arcy.
