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'There's no looking past it' - Leinster and Ulster name sides for conference deciding PRO14 clash

(Photo By Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Leinster will get one foot in the door of the Guinness PRO14 final on March 27 if they can topple Ulster in the Kingspan on Saturday night.

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Buoyed by the news of a new contract for Johnny Sexton and Cian Healy, the Dublin bases side know it is up to Ulster to bring the fight to them. Ulster’s lack of bonus points will cost them if they aren’t able to put in a stellar performance against the champions.

Ireland internationals Rhys Ruddock and Josh van der Flier, having been released back to the province, will start at blindside and openside, with the in-form Scott Penny starting at No.8. They are joined by Test veterans Devin Toner, Scott Fardy and Luke McGrath.

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Ulster have named the slightly more seasoned side, with the likes of Jacob Stockdale, Stuart McCloskey, Ian Madigan, John Cooney, Jordi Murphy and Marcell Coetzee all set to start the potentially season-defining fixture.

Ulster prop Andy Warwick said this week his side need to up their performance if they are to give themselves a chance of making the final.

“They are good teams (Glasgow and Ospreys) but yeah, the position we were in there we probably didn’t perform too well, especially in the first half and then against Ospreys,” said Warwick.

“We needed to be scoring more points in the first half and we were putting ourselves under pressure near the end of the game to force it, but if we want to get to the next level we have to be taking those opportunities and getting those bonus points.”

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Ulster need to do more than just beat Leinster on Saturday, but at least they will give themselves a chance of sneaking into the final if they do.

“There’s no looking past it, Leinster are the one of the top teams in Europe and for us to get to that next level we have to beat them and we’ll maybe not have a better opportunity than this week.

“If we’re going to prove to others outside this group that we’re good enough we have to beat Leinster.

“You obviously have to respect how good Leinster have been over the past few years and this season we played them over Christmas and they beat us well down there, and I suppose you just have to block out that noise and just focus on what you can do individually in your role for the team.

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“We’re confident of going out and giving a good performance and look this will always be a hard task against Leinster,” he added.

Ulster: Michael Lowry, Robert Baloucoune, James Hume, Stuart McCloskey, Jacob Stockdale, Ian Madigan, John Cooney; Eric O’Sullivan, John Andrew, Tom O’Toole, Alan O’Connor, Kieran Treadwell, Nick Timoney, Jordi Murphy (Capt.), Marcell Coetzee.

Replacements: Adam McBurney, Andrew Warwick, Marty Moore, Cormac Izuchukwu, Sean Reidy, Alby Mathewson, Stewart Moore, Rob Lyttle.

Leinster: Max O’Reilly, Cian Kelleher, Jimmy O’Brien, Rory O’Loughlin, Dave Kearney, Ross Byrne, Luke McGrath (CAPT), Ed Byrne, James Tracy, Michael Bent, Devin Toner, Scott Fardy, Rhys Ruddock, Josh van der Flier, Scott Penny.

Replacements: Seán Cronin, Peter Dooley, Thomas Clarkson, Ross Molony, Josh Murphy, Rowan Osborne, Jamie Osborne, Jack Dunne.

Reporting by the PRO14

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J
JW 6 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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