{"id":326026,"date":"2026-03-03T04:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T04:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/326026\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T04:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T04:08:11","slug":"bundee-aki-back-in-ireland-squad-ahead-of-wales-game-after-suspension-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/326026\/","title":{"rendered":"Bundee Aki back in Ireland squad ahead of Wales game after suspension \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bundee Aki<\/a> came back into the Irish squad this week with a view of claiming pitch time ahead of Ireland<\/a>\u2019s fourth game of this year\u2019s Six Nations<\/a> Championship against Wales on Friday in Aviva Stadium (KO: 8.10pm).<\/p>\n

Aki, who played for Connacht last weekend in their 15-10 win over Glasgow Warriors in the United Rugby Championship (URC), earned a six-week suspension, two of which were suspended for two years, after an Independent Disciplinary Committee upheld a misconduct complaint against him over interactions with match officials following Connacht\u2019s defeat to Leinster at Dexcom Stadium in January.<\/p>\n

As a result, the Irish centre was unavailable for Connacht\u2019s URC match against Zebre in January, and the opening three fixtures of Ireland\u2019s Six Nations campaign against France, Italy, and England.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it\u2019s great,\u201d said assistant coach Paul O\u2019Connell. \u201cHe\u2019s a brilliant personality to have around the place. He trained quite well today, and it just adds to the group. It\u2019s great to have that leadership, that kind of personality around the place, helping guys, talking to guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 35-year-old Aki won his 68th cap in Ireland\u2019s loss in Dublin to South Africa last November and was not involved in Ireland\u2019s pre-Six Nations trip to Quinta do Lago in Portugal. Instead, Ulster\u2019s uncapped Jude Postlethwaite travelled with the squad.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe [Aki] trained with the bibs today, so he was good with them. Yeah, so it\u2019s excellent to have him back in,\u201d said O\u2019Connell.<\/p>\n

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Find the channel here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bundee Aki came back into the Irish squad this week with a view of claiming pitch time ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[131786,61,60,1449,15551,112],"class_list":["post-326026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-bundee-aki","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ireland-rugby","tag-six-nations","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326026","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=326026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}