Connacht's Samoan summer recruit, flanker Ray Ofisa, could be poised to make his competitive debut for the province against Edinburgh Gunners in the third of their sequence of six successive Magners League ties at the Sportsground this Friday (kick-off 6.30). The 26-year-old, who moved to Otago in New Zealand when he was 19, has been included in a 22-man squad for Friday's game by Michael Bradley.
However, Connacht's injury woes continue. Creative Australian centre Paul Warwick has been ruled out with a thigh injury, thereby joining three props who are hors de combat. Stephen Knoop, who missed the game at the weekend against the Llanelli Scarlets, is again ruled out, while Ronan Loughney and Ray Hogan are also unavailable. Against that, promising young prop Michael Diffley is available for selection. The Roscommon native retired injured against Llanelli Scarlets but has recovered and is included in the squad.
When compared to their defeat at the Sportsground last season, the Scarlets appear to have added a lot more mobility and a harder edge to their forward play, dominating the breakdown area with their blitz defence and retaining the ball through the phases much more consistently. The new league leaders will pose a very stiff test for Leinster at Stradey Park in Saturday night's televised game.
That said, the Connacht think-tank were annoyed their homework on Regan King especially did not lead to a stiffer defensive effort when the Kiwi centre came off the bench to copperfasten the win with two trademark tries from midfield.
"Three of their four tries were soft from our perspective, but on the night we could have no complaint. We were chasing the game from the start, so there was always the danger we would cough up some soft scores," said Bradley." "We needed to make our dominance at the start of the second half count in terms of scores, but while it was encouraging the way we took the game to them at that stage, we were not able to make it count on the scoreboard." he said.
Bradley admitted Llanelli's dominance in the scrum was another big factor in their victory, but despite Connacht's front-row injury problems, he remains optimistic that they can rediscover their winning feeling after last week's reminder that they have to perform close to optimum level.
"This will be the third of six successive Magners League games we have at home. In that time some of the best rugby players in Europe will come to the Sportsground. We knew from the outset it would be a challenge and having won our opening two games we will be looking to getting back to winning ways against Edinburgh."
Elsewhere this weekend, Ulster entertain the Ospreys on Friday evening, while Munster will not be too disappointed to have an idle weekend given the frontline Irish players do not return until the following weekend.
Unbeaten Leinster meet Ulster in the final of the under-20 interprovincial championship this Saturday in the second of a double header in Dubarry Park in Athlone after the third/fourth place play-off between Munster and Connacht, while many of the Leinster Senior Cup games pencilled in for Saturday are subject to change. Apparently there's some golf tournament on this weekend.
CONNACHT SQUAD: Matt Mostyn, Daniel Riordan, Brett Sturgess, John Fogarty, Adrian Flavin, Colm Rigney, Ray Ofisa, Matt Lacey, John Muldoon, Mark McHugh, David Slemen, Darren Yapp, Tom Tierney, Brett Wilkinson, John Hearty, Gavin Williams, Chris Keane, Michael Diffley, Michael Swift, Andrew Farley, David Gannon, Keith Matthews.
