Cian Prendergast returns to captain Connacht for Friday’s EPCR Challenge Cup Round of 16 clash with Sharks at Dexcom Stadium, as Stuart Lancaster makes seven changes from the team that defeated Ospreys last week.<\/p>\n
Prendergast sat out the 21-14 win as the province extended their winning run to five games, while a sixth win in a row tomorrow would see them match their best form for 10 years.<\/p>\n
The province have their full compliment of Six Nations players involved this week, with Prendergast, Bundee Aki and Darragh Murray all starting, while Finlay Bealham is among the replacements.<\/p>\n
New Zealander Sam Gilbert returns from injury to start at full-back after missing the last two games, and comes in to replace Seam Naughton, who drops to the bench.<\/p>\n
Shane Jennings starts again on the right wing, but Chay Mullins comes in for Finn Treacy on the left side, after he was injured in last week’s win against Ospreys.<\/p>\n
Aki and Cathal Forde start in the centre for the third game in a row, while Matthew Devine replaces Ben Murphy to join Josh Ioane in the half-backs.<\/p>\n
Up front, Dave Heffernan is retained at hooker, with Billy Bohan and Sam Illo packing down either side of him, as Peter Dooley and Bealham provide cover off the bench.<\/p>\n
Joe Joyce comes in for Niall Murray at lock, joining Darragh Murray in the second row.<\/p>\n
Sean Jansen remains sidelined by injury, so Prendergast takes Paul Boyle’s spot at number 8, with Shamus Hurley-Langton and Josh Murphy on the flanks.<\/p>\n
Connacht: Sam Gilbert; Shane Jennings, Cathal Forde, Bundee Aki, Chay Mullins; Josh Ioane, Matthew Devine; Billy Bohan, Dave Heffernan, Sam Illo; Joe Joyce, Darragh Murray; Josh Murphy, Shamus Hurley-Langton, Cian Prendergast (capt)<\/p>\n
Replacements: Dylan Tierney-Martin, Peter Dooley, Finlay Bealham, Niall Murray, Paul Boyle, Colm Reilly, Sean Naughton, John Devine<\/p>\n
Listen to the RT\u00c9 Rugby podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>, and email us at sportpodcasts@rte.ie<\/p>\n \n Listen to live commentary of Leinster v Edinburgh on Sunday from 5.30pm on RT\u00c9 Radio 1 and follow a live blog on the RT\u00c9 News app and on rte.ie\/sport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cian Prendergast returns to captain Connacht for Friday’s EPCR Challenge Cup Round of 16 clash with Sharks at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-378388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378388","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=378388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}