With the heat very much on Ulster to avoid any further slippage in the URC table, this is hardly the ideal moment to be sending a rotated side to Limerick never mind that the northern province have also accumulated a worrying collection of injuries to high-profile players.
Ulster are also seeking to keep functioning on two fronts, next week’s Challenge Cup semi-final at home to Exeter Chiefs looming large, so there is much for Richie Murphy to grapple with in the immediate wake of picking up no points, and six injuries, from last week’s loss to Leinster in Belfast.
Angus Bell, Tom O’Toole, Scott Wilson, Bryn Ward, James Hume and Jude Postlethwaite all shipped knocks against Leo Cullen’s side in the 29-21 reverse and though Murphy was doubtless looking at some of these players not turning out in Limerick, to have them all absent is a blow particularly on the tighthead side of the scrum.
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With Nick Timoney and Rob Herring also still sidelined, this Saturday’s interprovincial is clearly a challenge for the northern province and not just because Munster, in sixth, are a mere place and point behind Ulster.
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“We’ve got a run of 10 games,” said Murphy. “We have to try and make do and pick the right squad for those particular games. [So] We’re under pressure at the moment.
“Our team selection this week will represent what we feel is the right team to play against Munster in Limerick.
“We’re six games in, we’re in back-to-back games and we’re in a 10-week block, no matter what, with possibly at least another two games on the end of it.
“From a player welfare point of view, you have to make sure that players aren’t allowed to play 10 weeks in a row. That can’t happen, so, with that in mind, there will be some rotation,” the Ulster head coach stated.
“Our squad is under massive pressure in and around the tighthead side. Obviously losing Tom [O’Toole] and Scotty [Wilson] will make us lean towards Tom McAllister, who has started two games for us and done particularly well, and Bryan O’Connor, who’s been part of that senior team for the last two seasons.”
Murphy, who didn’t put a timeline on any of the injuries continued: “Angus Bell is obviously another big loss in relation to loosehead, but Eric [O’Sullivan] is back fully fit now and Callum Reid is still there and obviously Sam Crean.
“Although it’s [the injuries to props] a worry, there are other guys there ready to step in.”
As for the URC table, Murphy said: “We can only try and accumulate as many points as we can.
“We’ve done that really well up until the last while and now, we’re in a situation where we’re battling on two fronts.”
“If you had said to us at the start of the year that with three games to go we had a chance of making top four or top eight [in the URC], and we had a semi-final to Europe, would we have been happy?
“We would have bitten your hand off. [But] It’s really important now that we finish it out, whatever obstacles come in our way.”
