{"id":349466,"date":"2026-03-16T19:21:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T19:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/349466\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T19:21:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T19:21:17","slug":"ulster-boosted-by-return-of-four-ireland-players-for-connacht-interpro-clash-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/349466\/","title":{"rendered":"Ulster boosted by return of four Ireland players for Connacht interpro clash \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ulster<\/a> look as if they will be able to deploy four of their Ireland squad members for Friday evening\u2019s URC<\/a> clash with Connacht<\/a> in Belfast.<\/p>\n

Tom O\u2019Toole, who has made a notably effective switch to loosehead prop in the Six Nations<\/a>, is back with the province this week after starting against Wales and Scotland, as are Jacob Stockdale, Nathan Doak and Tom Stewart.<\/p>\n

Ulster go into the interpro match with a spring in their step after they banked an impressive 40-19 victory at Edinburgh last Friday in the rearranged round two league game and they now sit third in the URC table.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re coming back with a little bit of extra confidence,\u201d said head coach Richie Murphy<\/a>. \u201cAnd I think that win at the weekend [in Edinburgh] sets us up in a really nice position within the league. And I suppose the guys that have been here and not in Irish camp, they feel like they\u2019re contributing to our goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll in all, it sets us up really well for the run-in,\u201d Murphy added while pointing out that Stuart McCloskey, Robert Baloucoune and Nick Timoney will be back in training at Ulster at some point next week.<\/p>\n

In terms of those who turned out at the Hive Stadium last Friday, Cormac Izuchukwu, James Hume and David Shanahan all picked up head knocks and are undergoing the return to play protocols. Jude Postlethwaite left the action with a suspected broken hand.<\/p>\n

It was an attention-grabbing performance from Ulster who scored 26 unanswered points in the second half and came away from the Scottish capital having scored six tries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a maturity starting to grow within the squad,\u201d said Murphy. \u201cThey\u2019re starting to understand how to apply pressure to an opposition team and not let them off the hook.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was nice to turn up, be under pressure and come out the other side of it. I thought the way the players navigated their way through that second half was really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Friday\u2019s opposition, he stated, \u201cConnacht have gone well the last few weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201c[They\u2019ve been] Pretty direct in the way they\u2019ve been playing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment, we\u2019re in a decent place, but it\u2019s really important that we play our own game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ulster look as if they will be able to deploy four of their Ireland squad members for Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[28454,61,60,43,32727,31398,14881],"class_list":["post-349466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-connacht-rugby","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-richie-murphy","tag-ulster-rugby","tag-united-rugby-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349466","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=349466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}