Magners League team news:Rory Best will look to put a disappointing outing against Scotland behind him when he lines out for Ulster against Cardiff Blues in the Magners League on Friday (7.05pm). The Ireland hooker replaces Nigel Brady in the frontrow, while flanker Stephen Ferris also returns to the blindside.
After defeat at Scarlets coach Brian McLaughlin has called on his side to put some distance between themselves and Cardiff, who lie two points behind Ulster in eighth.
"It's a big challenge at Cardiff, especially after the very disappointing display up at Scarlets. We're really looking forward to getting ourselves back on track and getting ourselves moving in the right direction,” he said today.
"We started quite well against the Scarlets, but we just made too many simple schoolboy errors. We put ourselves under ferocious pressure from the amount of errors we made, the soft points we gave away and the lack of discipline with regard to the referee.
"The team all sat down last Friday, which was the first time we were all back together after the internationals although we were missing Paddy (Wallace), Rory (Best) and Stephen (Ferris).
“We sat down and had a good chat about the Scarlets game, we went through the review of the game and there were a few home truths, there's no doubt about that. After that hopefully we'll see a much more focused and more determined performance this week.
"We've had two good training sessions so far this week, we had a good session on Monday. We got everybody back in on Tuesday and we had a good attack session on Tuesday morning. We're building up nicely and we just hope we can go to Cardiff and put up a display that we're proud of.”
In another change to the pack Dan Tuohy steps into the secondrow in place of Ed O'Donoghue, while in the backs Scotland wing Simon Danielli replaces Timoci Nagusa and Paul Marshall forms the halfback pairing with Niall O'Connor.
Connachtcoach Michael Bradley has named the 22-man squad to take on Leinster at the RDS on Saturday (4.30pm).
The injured trio of centre Niva Ta'auso, flanker Ray Ofisa and captain John Muldoon, is not included but Bradley insists his side are relsihing the trip to the home of the European champions.
"We always look forward to the games against the other Irish provinces and this one is no different as we head into a crucial part of the season," he said.
Ulster Team (v Cardiff):Jamie Smith; Andrew Trimble, Darren Cave, Paddy Wallace, Simon Danielli; Niall O'Connor, Paul Marshall; Tom Court, Rory Best, Brendan Botha; Dan Tuohy, Ryan Caldwell; Stephen Ferris, David Pollock, Chris Henry (capt).
Replacements:Nigel Brady, Declan Fitzpatrick, Ed O'Donoghue, Robbie Diack, Michael Heaney, Ian Humphreys, Timoci Nagusa
Connacht (squad v Leinster):Andrew Browne, Fionn Carr, Sean Cronin, Gavin Duffy, Adrian Flavin, Jamie Hagan, Ian Keatley, Keith Matthews, Mike McCarthy, Mike McComish, Robbie Morris, Frank Murphy, Troy Nathan, Miah Nikora, George Naoupu, Johnny O'Connor, Conor O'Loughlin, Michael Swift, Brian Tuohy, Bernie Upton, Brett Wilkinson, Aidan Wynne.