{"id":176502,"date":"2025-10-03T02:57:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T02:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/176502\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T02:57:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T02:57:08","slug":"united-rugby-championship-ulster-make-four-changes-for-trip-to-edinburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/176502\/","title":{"rendered":"United Rugby Championship: Ulster make four changes for trip to Edinburgh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Werner Kok will make his first appearance of the season with Jacob Stockdale missing through injury for Ulster&#8217;s trip to face Edinburgh in the United Rugby Championship on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Stockdale picked up a foot injury during last week&#8217;s 42-21 win against the Dragons in Belfast and has not recovered in time for the game which now has an earlier kick-off time of 19:00 BST due to the expected arrival of Storm Amy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Kok will start on the right win with Zac Ward filling in for Stockdale on the opposite flank following his try-scoring performance against the Welsh club last week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Michael Lowry also misses out this week with a hip injury as Stewart Moore takes his pace at full-back.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In total, head coach Richie Murphy makes four changes from the side that began last week as Tom Stewart gets the nod at hooker, with Callum Reid and Tom O&#8217;Toole either side of him in the front row.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sean Reffell has been handed his first start of the season at open-side flanker, joining try-scorers from last week Cormac Izuchukwu and Nick Timoney in the back row.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The team is captained by Iain Henderson who partners Harry Sheridan in the second row.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Murphy has opted to retain the half-back partnership of Nathan Doak and Jack Murphy, while Stuart McCloskey and James Hume are again preferred as centres.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jude Postlethwaite is one of three backs named among the replacements, joined by Conor McKee, Jake Flannery, while Rob Herring, Sam Crean, Scott Wilson, David McCann and Juarno Augustus provide the forwards cover.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ulster: Moore; Kok, Hume, McCloskey, Ward; Murphy, Doak; Reid, Stewart, O&#8217;Toole; Henderson (capt), Sheridan; Izuchukwu, Reffell, Timoney.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Replacements: Herring, Crean, Wilson, McCann, Augustus, McKee, Flannery, Postlethwaite<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Werner Kok will make his first appearance of the season with Jacob Stockdale missing through injury for Ulster&#8217;s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-176502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}