{"id":211581,"date":"2025-12-26T09:11:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T09:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/211581\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T09:11:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T09:11:09","slug":"all-you-need-to-know-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/211581\/","title":{"rendered":"All you need to know"},"content":{"rendered":"

Round eight of the BKT United Rugby Championship serves up a double helping of festive derbies on 27 December.<\/p>\n

Saturday afternoon sees Ulster take the trip to Galway, while Munster host Leinster in Limerick later in the evening.<\/p>\n

Find out all you need to know about the games here.<\/p>\n

RADIO<\/p>\n

There’s live commentary of both games on RT\u00c9 Radio 1’s Saturday Sport.<\/p>\n

TV<\/p>\n

Connacht v Ulster (Saturday, 5.30pm) is live on TG4 and Premier Sports; Munster v Leinster (Saturday, 7.45pm) is on Premier Sports.<\/p>\n

All other games are live on Premier Sports and URC.tv.<\/p>\n

ONLINE<\/p>\n

We’ll have a live blog and live score updates, reports and reaction.<\/p>\n

WEATHER<\/p>\n

To follow…<\/p>\n

\"dsadsa\"<\/p>\n

Listen to the RT\u00c9 Rugby podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Connacht host Ulster on the back of a disheartening 48-28 defeat to Dragons<\/a>, who recorded their first win in 23 URC games going back to the start of last season.<\/p>\n

Stuart Lancaster’s side will be out to put an end to a run of nine interprovincial defeats in a row, a streak that includes three defeats to Saturday\u2019s visitors.<\/p>\n

Richie Murphy\u2019s side also lost their last outing, blowing a 17-7 lead to Leinster in Dublin to go down 24-20.<\/p>\n

Still, they come into this round with four wins from six, while they had a game postponed in round 2.<\/p>\n

Ulster lost their last three matches against fellow Irish provinces since beating the Westerners 12 months ago.<\/p>\n

Connacht: Sam Gilbert, Daniel Ryan, Cathal Forde, Bundee Ali, Finn Treacy, Jack Carty, Ben Murphy, Denis Buckley, Dave Heffernan, Finlay Bealham, Joe Joyce, David O’Connor, Josh Murphy, Cian Prendergast (C), Sean Jansen.<\/p>\n

Replacements: Dylan Tierney-Martin, Jordan Duggan, Fiachna Barrett, Darragh Murray, Sean O\u2019Brien, Matthew Devine, Josh Ioane, Hugh Gavin.<\/p>\n

Ulster: Jacob Stockdale, Werner Kok, James Hume, Stuart McCloskey, Zac Ward, Jack Murphy, Conor McKee, Sam Crean, Tom Stewart, Scott Wilson, Harry Sheridan, Cormac Izuchukwu, David McCann, Nick Timoney (C), Juarno Augustus.<\/p>\n

Replacements: John Andrew, Angus Bell, Tom O’Toole Joe Hopes, Bryn Ward, Nathan Doak, Jake Flannery, Jude Postlethwaite.<\/p>\n

Referee: Eoghan Cross (IRFU).<\/p>\n

\n

Munster welcome Leinster to Limerick looking for a first regular-season double over their opponents in ten years.<\/p>\n

Clayton McMillan’s side were brilliant value for their 31-14 victory in Croke Park<\/a> last October and have suffered just one defeat \u2013 at home to leaders Stormers \u2013 this campaign.<\/p>\n

They dug out a bonus-point win at Ospreys last time out and success on Saturday night would end a run of six defeats in a row to Leinster at Thomond Park.<\/p>\n

Leo Cullen\u2019s charges have lost three of seven URC games to date and have failed to fully click in their four wins, most recently last weekend\u2019s victory over Ulster at Aviva Stadium.<\/p>\n

Their 24-10 victory against Dragons in round six at Rodney Parade ended a run of three successive away defeats in the championship.<\/p>\n

Munster: Shane Daly; Calvin Nash, Tom Farrell, Alex Nankivell, Thaakir Abrahams; Jack Crowley, Craig Casey; Michael Milne, Lee Barron, Michael Ala’alatoa; Edwin Edogbo, Tom Ahern; Tadhg Beirne (C), Jack O’Donoghue, Gavin Coombes.<\/p>\n

Replacements: Diarmuid Barron, Jeremy Loughman, John Ryan, Jean Kleyn, Fineen Wycherley, Paddy Patterson, Dan Kelly, John Hodnett.<\/p>\n

Leinster: Ciar\u00e1n Frawley, Tommy O’Brien, Rieko Ioane, Robbie Henshaw, James Lowe, Harry Byrne, Jamison Gibson-Park, Andrew Porter, R\u00f3nan Kelleher, Thomas Clarkson, Joe McCarthy, James Ryan, Max Deegan, Josh van der Flier, Caelan Doris.<\/p>\n

Replacements: John McKee, Paddy McCarthy, Tadhg Furlong, Diarmuid Mangan, Scott Penny, Fintan Gunne, Charlie Tector, Andrew Osborne.<\/p>\n

Referee: Peter Martin (IRFU).<\/p>\n

FULL LIST OF FIXTURES, RESULTS AND STANDINGS<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Round eight of the BKT United Rugby Championship serves up a double helping of festive derbies on 27…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-211581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}