BOTH Leinster and Ulster had to make changes last night in their teams to meet Connacht and Munster respectively in the Interprovincial Championship tomorrow.

Flank forward and captain Chris Pim (Old Wesley) and left wing Denis Hickie (St Mary's College) are both out of the Leinster team, while international centre Maurice Field (Malone) has cried off the Ulster team.

Pim has a knee injury and Hickie a hamstring. Pim's place will be taken by former international Kelvin Leahy (Wanderers), and another international, Darragh O'Mahony (Lansdowne), comes in for Hickie. Trevor Brennan (Bective Rangers) comes into the replacements for Leahy. Scrum-half Alain Rolland (Blackrock College) takes over the captaincy.

Field has been ruled out of the Ulster team by a foot injury sustained last week against Connacht, and his place goes to Sheldon Coulter (Ballymena), for whom it will be a debut in the championship. Coulter's place on the replacement bench goes to Andrew Parke (Blackheath).

. RFU chiefs have belatedly invited EPRUC to resume talks in an effort to avoid the threatened breakaway, which is just a week away.

Twickenham and the Courage League's first and second division clubs have been distant fur more than two weeks now, even with the deadline looming.

But yesterday Twickenham issued a statement saying: "The RFU has made contact with EPRUC in order to start negotiations to settle the dispute."