Bundee Aki, Finlay Bealham and Mack Hansen back for Connacht’s key game with Sharks

The return of several key players is a timely boost for Connacht ahead of a critical game in their bid to claim a URC top eight place.

Internationals Finlay Bealham, Mack Hansen and Bundee Aki, in addition to Josh Murphy are fit and available for Saturday’s visit of Cell C Sharks, who arrive in Galway in a comfortable fifth position on the table.

And without David Hawkshaw (ankle), Jarrad Butler (finger) Adam Byrne (calf) and Matthew Burke (neck), head coach Pete Wilkins accepts this is another of the season’s “must-wins games” where Connacht need to turn their potential and improvement into results.

“We’ve had a lot of must-win stages in our season to date, and I think this week is another one,” he says.

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“We’ve toured South Africa and we’ve come out the other side, and we’re in touch with the top eight, so how others decipher that is up to them. But, certainly for us, we’re confident we can get result this weekend, we’re confident that will propel us at the table, and we’re still aiming to be in that top eight come the end of the season.”

On the back of a 41-12 loss to Leinster, Wilkins, now in his sixth season, says there have been gains in every season, and Connacht “were really good value for the first 60 minutes” at the RDS.

“Leinster show their class in terms of how they took their opportunities. You know, we got 20 tackle breaks to their 16, but we didn’t turn enough of those into line breaks. It was two for us, and nine to them and ultimately the scoreboard showed that. So you can tackle at 91 per cent, and you can post those tackle breaks in your favour, but ultimately the really good teams punish you when you make small mistakes, and they can quickly become seven points.”

Eliminating errors is one big improvement needed, but Wilkins is hoping Connacht’s weather might detract from the Shark’s fleet-footed players on the Sportsground’s new fast surface.

“I think the wind and the rain will still be there. Regardless of the surface. So how much they enjoy that, I don’t know. The set-up here is different to what a lot of other teams are used to, particularly those from overseas,” he says.

“We relish playing in those conditions. We relish playing here in front of our fans. So that is a weapon for us, but also we’ve got to align that with what we do on the field and we’ve got to apply the pressure and take them out of their comfort zone in the rugby sense as well. So hopefully if we can get the best of both worlds, then we’ll be in for really good performance.

“The challenge for us is to control the big moments and the big players they have, so they don’t get that quick reward, and then to make sure that on our side of things that we take him through the phases and make them work. We need to take them to a place where they’re less comfortable. So for us there’s a lot of attitude that will feed into that, a lot of endeavour, but it’s also our own accuracy.”