Best, Court And Wallace To Face Leinster
Ulster coach Matt Williams has named three of the province’s recent Grand Slam winners in his team for Sunday’s Magners League derby clash with Leinster at the RDS (kick-off 5.30pm).
Two changes have been made to the Ulster starting line-up, from the team that defeated Glasgow Warriors three weeks ago.
Fresh from last weekend’s memorable triumph over Wales, Paddy Wallace takes his place at inside centre, with youngster Ian Whitten dropping back to the replacements bench.
Tom Court also returns from RBS 6 Nations duty to don the number 1 jersey, in place of Justin Fitzpatrick.
Grand Slam hooker Rory Best will again captain the Ulster side, while his Ireland team-mate Stephen Ferris sits out the game out due to a dislocated finger.
Sunday’s interprovincial game sees the return of powerful South African Robbie Diack to the matchday squad, after missing Ulster’s last four games through injury.
Prop Bryan Young and winger Timoci Nagusa are two other notable inclusions on the bench.
Speaking about Sunday’s encounter, Ulster coach Matt Williams said: “I think it’s going to be a hard sell, Leinster haven’t had a home game for a long time, just after the Grand Slam a lot of people want to see some rugby.
“It will be a great day. It’s a day you want to play and a day you want to coach. There will be no shortage of passion or excitement.
“Just to get everyone back has been a great week for us. We want to go down and play for each other and play for the jersey, as will Leinster and when you get two teams that are passionate for it, you’ll get a great game.”
He added: “I have asked the guys to make sure they turn up this week – if you don’t turn up against a side like Leinster they’ll kill you.
“They play beautiful rugby and are very structured. They have a lot of systems they use and they are a very complex team which means they are hard to predict, and if a team is hard to predict it’s hard to defend against.
“We’re a side that is going forward and they don’t necessarily like playing us, so we have to turn up and make it awkward for them.
“I’ve only played Leinster once since being here and I was very unhappy with the way we turned up that day. We weren’t as passionate and committed as we should have been.”
ULSTER (v Leinster): Clinton Schifcofske; Andrew Trimble, Darren Cave, Paddy Wallace, Simon Danielli; Ian Humphreys, Isaac Boss; Tom Court, Rory Best (capt), BJ Botha, Ed O’Donoghue, Ryan Caldwell, Matt McCullough, David Pollock, Chris Henry.
Replacements: Nigel Brady, Bryan Young, Carlo Del Fava, Robbie Diack, Cillian Willis, Ian Whitten, Timoci Nagusa.