New Ulster signing Juarno Augustus is set to make his debut off the bench in Friday’s United Rugby Championship opener against the Dragons in Belfast (20:05 BST). <\/p>\n
South African number eight Augustus joined the club after helping Northampton Saints reach last season’s Investec Champions Cup final. <\/p>\n
With Augustus on the bench, David McCann starts in the back row alongside Cormac Izuchukwu and Nick Timoney.<\/p>\n
In a strong starting line-up boasting nine Ireland internationals, James Hume wins his 100th cap in midfield alongside Stuart McCloskey.<\/p>\n
Jacob Stockdale, who injured his shoulder during Ireland’s Test win over Georgia in July, starts on the left wing with Zac Ward on the right.<\/p>\n
Mike Lowry starts at full-back while Jack Murphy and Nathan Doak are paired in the half-backs. <\/p>\n
Callum Reid, Rob Herring and Tom O’Toole start in an experienced front row boasting 407 appearances, with captain Iain Henderson joined in the second row by Harry Sheridan. <\/p>\n
In addition to Augustus, Tom Stewart, Scott Wilson, Matthew Dalton and Sam Crean – who joined Ulster in the summer after a loan spell last season – provide forwards cover on the bench. <\/p>\n
Conor McKee, Jake Flannery and Ben Carson are the backline replacements. <\/p>\n
Ulster: Lowry; Ward, Hume, McCloskey, Stockdale; Murphy, Doak; Reid, Herring, O’Toole, Henderson (capt), Sheridan, Izuchukwu, Timoney, McCann. <\/p>\n
Replacements: Stewart, Crean, Wilson, Dalton, Augustus, McKee, Flannery, Carson. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Ulster signing Juarno Augustus is set to make his debut off the bench in Friday’s United Rugby…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-168012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}