URC weekend previews: Munster braced for must-win encounter

United Rugby Championship: Emirate Lions v Leinster, Emirates Airlines Park, Johannesburg, 3pm Irish time (Live on RTÉ 2, Premier Sports and URC TV)

Sam Prendergast, this year’s Under-20 Grand Slam-winning outhalf makes his Leinster debut as far away as possible from the RDS and at altitude.

As one of Leinster’s young players brought to South Africa to see out the regular season before the play-offs begin, the former Newbridge College 20-year-old partners scrumhalf Nick McCarthy against a Lions side that needs to win.

Nine players of Leinster’s match-day 23 have not yet reached double figures for the club and at fullback Chris Cosgrave (5) and inside centre Ben Brownlee (2) will, like Prendergast, see this as an opportunity to impress.

The Counter Ruck: the rugby newsletter from The Irish Times

---

Munster beat Ulster to set up quarter-final date with Ospreys

---

Keenan on the scoresheet but Ireland men and women fail to reach Madrid semi-finals

---

Hugo Keenan’s Sevens dream is a fantastic risk to take – only the Olympics has that kind of power

---

Captain Rhys Ruddock and Dave Kearney ensure that it is not all young guns with Kearney, on the left wing due to make his 150th league appearance while Tommy O’Brien on the right wing makes his first appearance of the season after recovering from a knee injury.

Leinster have secured their playoff place so really it is a look and learn experience for a selection of players who need to impress in the contest for places as Cullen’s side move into the business end of the season.

Georgian international Vakhtang Abdaladze is set for his first Leinster start at tighthead prop along with loosehead Michael Milne, who was called into this season’s Irish squad for the Six Nations Championship when Cian Healy was injured, and hooker Lee Barron.

Brian Deeny, whose childhood dream was to play Gaelic football with Wexford, joins South African international Jason Jenkins in the second row, with Ruddock, Will Connors and Max Deegan forming the back-row.

The bench is also loaded with Academy players with five of them set to feature. Clontarf’s Alex Soroka, James Culhane, Ben Murphy, Charlie Tector and Rob Russell are all hoping for game time.

LIONS: Q Horn; S Pienaar, M Rass, M Louw (CAPT), E van der Merwe; G Lombard, S Nohamba; R Rijnsburger, PJ Botha, A Ntlabakanye, W Alberts, R Schoeman, J Kriel, R Delport, F Horn. Replacements: M Brandon, JP Smith, R Dreyer, D Landsberg, T Gordon, M van den Berg, R Jonker, A Coetzee

LEINSTER: C Cosgrave; T O’Brien, L Turner, B Brownlee, D Kearney; S Prendergast, N McCarthy; M Milne, L Barron, V Abdaladze, B Deeny, J Jenkins; R Ruddock (capt), W Connors, M Deegan. Replacements: T McElroy, E Byrne, T Clarkson, A Soroka, J Culhane, B Murphy, C Tector, R Russell.

Referee: Mike Adamson (SRU).

♦◊♦◊♦

United Rugby Championship: Stormers v Munster, DHL Stadium, Cape Town, 5.15pm Irish time (Live RTÉ and Premier Sports).

No Joey Carbery in the match day squad in what could be framed as the first of Munster’s two biggest games of the season. Carbery’s exclusion will ensure further frustration for the Irish outhalf, who is now firmly out of favour.

Carbery was not included in the starting line-up for Munster’s recent Champions Cup game against the Sharks as Jack Crowley continues at outhalf and Edinburgh-bound Ben Healy secures his place on the bench.

With URC playoff slots available and a place in next season’s Champions Cup up for grabs, it is a must-win game for Munster as they could drop to eighth or lower if they don’t win both their games in South Africa, with a trip to Durban ending their regular league campaign next week.

Stormers held Leinster to a draw in March, the only team this season to do so, but they recently fell heavily to Exeter Chiefs 42-17 in the Champions Cup quarter-final.

“It seems to us that the fixes were really simple, small technical details that we didn’t get right,” said Stormers coach John Dobson. “We are still happy with our campaign. We are mostly disappointed we didn’t put up a better show in Exeter.”

Either way, Graham Rowntree is expecting a reaction from the home side, who have not lost at DHL Stadium since December 2021. Rowntree has made five changes to the side that were beaten by Sharks in Durban two weeks ago.

One of those changes is to the backline where scrumhalf Conor Murray joins Crowley, while in the pack, Springbok RG Snyman makes his second start in a row.

DHL STORMERS: D Willemse; S Hartzenberg, R Nel, D du Plessis, S Seabelo; M Libbok, P de Wet; S Kitshoff ©, J Dweba, F Malherbe, R van Heerden, M Orie, W Engelbrecht, B Dixon, H Dayimani. Replacements: 16 JJ Kotze, 17 Ali Vermaak, 18 Neethling Fouche, 19 Ernst van Rhyn, 20 Marcel Theunissen, 21 Evan Roos, 22 Herschel Jantjies, 23 Clayton Blommetjies.

MUNSTER: M Haley; C Nash, A Frisch, M Fekitoa, S Daly; J Crowley, C Murray; J Loughman, D Barron, S Archer; J Kleyn, RG Snyman; P O’Mahony (capt), A Kendellen, G Coombes. Replacements: S Buckley, J Wycherley, K Knox, F Wycherley, J O’Donoghue, C Casey, B Healy, K Earls.

Referee: Craig Evans (WRU)

♦◊♦◊♦

United Rugby Championship: Connacht v Cardiff, The Sportsground, Galway, 7.35pm. (Live on RTÉ 2 and Premier Sport)

Not quite a night of reckoning for Connacht, but not far off it. Whether before the season, due to demographics and all that, or after losing four of their first five in the most exacting of early-season schedules, there’d have been long odds against them reaching the URC play-offs and next season’s Champions Cup.

But Connacht held tough and, on the back of five successive wins, a ninth home win in 11 games tonight will secure qualification for the play-offs and a tilt at the Champions Cup away to Glasgow next Saturday.

Hence, the return of captain Jack Carty, international Finlay Bealham, Denis Buckley, Jarrad Butler, Josh Murphy and Diarmuid Kilgallen is timely.

Cardiff are two points off the top eight and atop the Welsh Shield by four points from the Ospreys, who they meet next Saturday.

Lopeti Timani and Seb Davies return, while Jason Harries replaces Josh Adams, injured when Cardiff’s Challenge Cup hopes also ended in Treviso last weekend, albeit more narrowly.

Connacht will bid farewell to eight departing players after the game and Cardiff are also losing the likes of Max Llewellyn, Jarrod Evans and Dillon Lewis this summer.

But as we saw with their win over Sale, and as could be seen by the performances of Exeter in recent weeks, an exodus of players can be a powerful spur.

Connacht have risen up the table in part on their offensive and defensive lineout (Niall Murray has made a league-high 14 lineout steals this season – six more than any other player.)

But Cardiff, well used to playing on a 3G pitch, have three of the URC’s 15 leading jackallers in Thomas Young, Rhys Carré and Josh Turnbull, as well as the threat of James Botham and others.

This one is liable to have its ebbs and its flows.

CONNACHT: Tiernan O’Halloran, Diarmuid Kilgallen, Tom Farrell, Bundee Aki, Mack Hansen, Jack Carty (capt), Caolin Blade, Denis Buckley, Dylan Tierney-Martin, Finlay Bealham, Josh Murphy, Niall Murray, Cian Prendergast, Conor Oliver, Jarrad Butler

Replacements: Eoin de Buitléar, Peter Dooley, Dominic Robertson-McCoy, Oisín Dowling, Shamus Hurley-Langton, Kieran Marmion, Tom Daly, Shane Jennings.

CARDIFF: Ben Thomas, Owen Lane, Mason Grady, Max Llewellyn, Jason Harries, Rhys Priestland, Tomos Williams (capt); Corey Domachowski, Liam Belcher, Keiron Assiratti, Lopeti Timani, Seb Davies, James Botham, Thomas Young, Taulupe Faletau.

Replacements: Kristian Dacey, Rhys Carré, Dillon Lewis, Teddy Williams, Josh Turnbull, James Ratti, Lloyd Williams, Harri Millard

Referee: Sam Grove-White (SRU)

Forecast: Connacht to win.