IRFU provincial and national age grade coaches - Under-18s, Under-19s and Under-20s - and IRFU elite player development staff from the four provinces gathered recently to review their experiences, discuss challenges and align closer to ensure the development of more effective elite players across the IRFU Elite Player Pathway.

Faloon Leads Connacht For Ravenhill Encounter

Friday night marks the second installment of back-to-back interprovincial ties for Connacht as they travel to Ravenhill to take on current RaboDirect PRO12 leaders Ulster (kick-off 7.05pm).

Head coach Eric Elwood has made four changes to his starting line-up following Connacht's rousing bonus point victory over Leinster last Friday.

Up front, Denis Buckley makes way for Brett Wilkinson at loosehead prop and Ronan Loughney, who last week was called up to the Ireland training squad, returns to the tighthead prop position.

Elsewhere in the pack, David Gannon replaces Eoin McKeon at blindside flanker. Gannon is joined in the back row by former Ulster flanker Willie Faloon, who will captain Connacht in Belfast.

There are no changes to the westerners' back-line with Dan Parks making his second appearance for the province at out-half.

Try scorers from the Leinster game, Tiernan O'Halloran and Fetu'u Vainikolo, start again on the wings while the centre partnership of Eoin Griffin and David McSharry remains in place.

Along with long-term absentees Frank Murphy and Dave Nolan, team captain Gavin Duffy remains sidelined with a hamstring injury.

Andrew Browne, Matt Healy, Matthew Jarvis, Eoin McKeon, Brian Murphy, Paul O'Donohoe, Danie Poolman and Kyle Tonetti are also unavailable for selection at present.

CONNACHT (v Ulster): Robbie Henshaw; Tiernan O'Halloran, Eoin Griffin, David McSharry, Fetu'u Vainikolo; Dan Parks, Kieran Marmion; Brett Wilkinson, Adrian Flavin, Ronan Loughney, Michael Swift, Mike McCarthy, David Gannon, Willie Faloon (capt), George Naoupu.

Replacements: Jason Harris-Wright, Denis Buckley, Nathan White, John Muldoon, Johnny O'Connor, David Moore, Miah Nikora, Mata Fifita.

Connacht elite player development officer Jimmy Duffy chats about the province's latest programme, 'Grassroots to Green Shirts', which they hope will increase the number of indigenous players coming through the provincial player pathway. In the westerners' current senior squad, there are 19 players who have come through the Connacht system.

Speaking about Connacht's 'Grassroots to Green Shirts' initiative, the province's CEO Tom Sears said: "We like to think we're innovative in our approach, that we're looking at things slightly differently. We've shown that the production line is working with the young players coming through. The system is working, we just need a bit more investment to make sure we can get more players through."

Connacht's head of commercial and marketing Alex Saul talks about some exciting developments off the pitch for the province, including their 'Grassroots to Green Shirts' crowd-funding initiative which gives fans the chance to play their part in growing and developing the future stars of Connacht and Irish rugby.

Speaking after the 30-11 home win over the Dragons, Connacht head coach Eric Elwood said: "We're a little bit disappointed we didn't get the bonus point, but the good thing is we got a good victory at home and we had a great crowd. We're back on the horse and it sets us up for Harlequins (next week)."

Speaking about recovering from the disappointing defeat to the Scarlets, young Leinster centre Noel Reid said: "We went over looking for a result and we didn't perform the way we wanted to. So we need a big week now of training and focusing on the things that didn't go our way - the breakdown in particular."

Speaking after Leinster's 31-30 RaboDirect PRO12 final defeat to the Ospreys, head coach Joe Schmidt said: "They scored a try in each of those instances (when we had a player yellow carded). It obviously has an impact, particularly in the last ten minutes when we felt that we would have a bit of fatigue."