Ulster to find the going tough

MAGNERS LEAGUE Edinburgh v Ulster:EVER SINCE they won the league four seasons ago, when winning seven and drawing one of their eight-game run-in, Ulster's results domestically have tended to fall away once their involvement in Europe came to an end in January. But even by those standards, they have fallen like a stone of late.

Hence they can feel Connacht’s hot breath on their necks, with their place in next season’s Heineken Cup liable to go to the wire against the westerners a fortnight hence at Ravenhill in the final round of matches unless they can win this difficult penultimate fixture tomorrow while hoping Connacht lose.

Having beaten Edinburgh and Bath in the Heineken Cup, Ulster drew with the Dragons when resuming their League campaign, but since then Brian McLaughlin’s side have lost five games in a row, conceding a whopping 140 points in those five games. They have never gone seven winless games in league history but their last league win was at home to Munster on January 2nd and their last away win was against Connacht in September.

Jamie Smith returns at fullback, with Simon Danielli moving to the wing and Nevin Spence dropping to the bench. Niall O’Connor returns at outhalf at the expense of Ian Humphreys while Paul Marshall is retained ahead of the Leinster-bound and strangely out-of-favour Isaac Boss.

Up front they are considerably strengthened by the return of captain Rory Best, BJ Both, Stephen Ferris, lock Dan Tuohy and flanker Willie Faloon.

Maintaining that the squad remained very positive, and that Irish defensive coach Less Kiss had been working with them this week, McLaughlin added: “So it is just a matter of going out at Murrayfield on Sunday with the attitude that we can gain the victory. We have to be mentally and physically tough and make sure we don’t give away soft, cheap and easy points.”

Edinburgh make four changes, with 23-year-old flanker Roddy Grant also leading the team, while centre Nick De Luca returns from injury and Greig Laidlaw replaces Mike Blair at scrum-half.

EDINBURGH: B Cairns; T Visser, N De Luca, J Houston, M Robertson; P Godman, G Laidlaw; A Jacobsen, R Ford, G Cross, S MacLeod, J Hamilton, A MacDonald, R Grant (capt), D Callam. Replacements: A Kelly, K Traynor, F McKenzie, S Newlands, M Blair, A Turnbull, J Thompson.

ULSTER: J Smith, A Trimble, D Cave, I Whitten, S Danielli; N O'Connor, P Marshall; T Court, R Best (Capt), BJ Botha, E O'Donoghue, D Tuohy, S Ferris, W Faloon, R Diack. Replacements: A Kyricaou, B Young, R Caldwell, TJ Anderson, I Boss, I Humphreys, N Spence.

Referee: Nigel Owens(WRU).

Forecast: Edinburgh to win.