Henshaw and White return to strengthen in-form Connacht

The poverty of imagination and subtlety, in creative terms, of Benetton Treviso’s performance in defeat to Leinster at the Stadio Comunale di Monigo last Sunday is a pretty significant and worrying handicap for the Italian side.

They were long on grunt and displayed no shortage of effort but they rarely troubled Leinster. Treviso last won a match in the Guinness Pro12 back in February and have lost some key players over the summer.

They are desperate to take some impetus into the Champions Cup campaign.

In contrast Connacht are looking to record a fifth successive league victory for the first time since 2002 and can welcome back a couple of Irish internationals in Robbie Henshaw and Nathan White.

Pat Lam has decided to play Henshaw at fullback, rather than the centre position he occupies with Ireland, moving Tiernan O’Halloran to the wing.

Long way

He explained: “We’ve made a few changes this week, with Robbie and Nathan back for us but also some guys returning from injury. This is only game four of the 16-game run so it’s a long way to go and we’re going to need players feeling as fresh as possible each week.

“Robbie will start in the 15 shirt for us where he has a lot of experience from his earlier days at Connacht.

“Obviously Tiernan has done a great job for us at fullback since the start of the season but his move to wing for this game means we can keep that continuity in our centre partnership for this week.

“We always have tough, physical battles when it comes to Treviso and we’ve always had to work hard against them. They have the ability to pile on the pressure and it’s up to us to counter that by being disciplined to stay in our systems and structures,” concluded Lam.

In other changes from last week’s win over Edinburgh, prop Dave Heffernan, secondrow Ultan Dillane and Eoin McKeon are restored to the pack while Andrew Browne will play his 100th Pro12 match for the province.

It is the first time that former Blackrock schoolboy AJ MacGinty, who recently played for the USA at the World Cup, will be involved in a match day squad as he is named among the replacements.

Anything other than a Connacht victory would be a surprise and if they can take a grip early on a bonus point might be in the offing too.