{"id":637865,"date":"2026-10-06T08:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T08:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/637865\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T08:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T08:24:08","slug":"depleted-connacht-need-to-iron-out-wrinkles-against-glasgow-says-woodman-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/637865\/","title":{"rendered":"Depleted Connacht need to iron out wrinkles against Glasgow, says Woodman \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Connacht<\/a> will again be without a number of key players for their visit to Glasgow Warriors in the URC<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n

Dave Heffernan (calf), Will Connors (calf), Ben Murphy (ankle) and Harry West (hamstring) remain unavailable, while David O\u2019Connor (quad) and Byron Ralston (knee) will also be out of action.<\/p>\n

But in some good news for the province, Shamus Hurley-Langton has recovered from the rib injury that saw him miss last weekend\u2019s away win over Benetton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite the positive of last Friday\u2019s win after an opening-round defeat to the Stormers in Galway, Connacht scrum coach Trevor Woodman feels there\u2019s room to improve against the Warriors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see players taking more responsibility and that\u2019s impressed me,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if I were Glasgow, looking at our last two games, I definitely would say, \u2018well, let\u2019s go after them\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve looked at the issues against [Benetton] and there\u2019s a couple of things we can put right easily, so it\u2019s up to us to go out there and put it right on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woodman expects Glasgow to be looking for a solid response after their draw against Ulster<\/a> at Scotstoun last Saturday. Juarno Augustus denied the hosts victory in that match with his 73rd-minute try, which was followed by Nathan Doak\u2019s conversion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be tough,\u201d said Woodman, \u201cbut we\u2019ve got plenty of belief in our game and what we\u2019re about to get a win, and there\u2019s no reason why we should shy away from that.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, they won\u2019t be happy with their performance at the weekend, so they\u2019re going to be strong up front. Their mauling game is one of the standouts in the URC, their defence, their line speed \u2013 but we\u2019ve got to have belief.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about us staying in control of the ball when we\u2019ve got it, making sure we\u2019re playing in the right areas and not allowing them multiple entries.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fixture also comes with added spice, with Connacht head coach Stuart Lancaster\u2019s son Dan playing for the Warriors.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe keeps them on the front foot, doesn\u2019t he?\u201d Woodman said of the 25-year-old back. \u201cHe\u2019s a smart player. But there\u2019s been no talk yet of \u2018let\u2019s run over the 10\u2032. We don\u2019t want to be annoying his dad at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Connacht will again be without a number of key players for their visit to Glasgow Warriors in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[287961,85,46,105,170298],"class_list":["post-637865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-connacht-rugby","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports","tag-united-rugby-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}