{"id":449922,"date":"2026-02-28T08:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T08:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/449922\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T08:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T08:05:10","slug":"united-rugby-championship-returning-bundee-aki-on-connacht-bench-after-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/449922\/","title":{"rendered":"United Rugby Championship: Returning Bundee Aki on Connacht bench after ban"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland centre Bundee Aki has been named on the bench for Connacht’s United Rugby Championship (URC) game against Glasgow Warriors after returning from a four-match ban.<\/p>\n

The 35-year-old was handed the suspension for “verbal abuse and disrespect” <\/a>towards match officials in Connacht’s URC loss to Leinster in January.<\/p>\n

Aki missed Ireland’s opening three Six Nations game and Connacht’s bonus-point win over Zebre last month.<\/p>\n

Connacht head coach Stuart Lancaster makes four changes from that outing in Parma.<\/p>\n

Finn Treacy replaces Chay Mullins on the left wing while props Denis Buckley and the fit-again Sam Illo come into the front row with Jordan Duggan and Jack Aungier making way.<\/p>\n

David O’Connor is also handed a start at lock in place of Josh Murphy with Cian Prendergast and Darragh Murphy, who were released from the Ireland squad for the game, named among the replacements.<\/p>\n

Connacht sit 12th in the URC table while Glasgow Warriors occupy top spot.<\/p>\n

Connacht: S Gilbert; S Jennings; H West, C Forde; F Treacy, J Ioane; C Blade; D Buckley, D Tierney-Martin, S Illo; D O’Connor, J Joyce; P Boyle, S O’Brien, S Jansen.<\/p>\n

Replacements: M Victory, B Bohan, J Aungier, J Murphy, C Prendergast, C Reilly, J Carty, B Aki.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland centre Bundee Aki has been named on the bench for Connacht’s United Rugby Championship (URC) game against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-449922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449922","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=449922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}