After a month of downtime, Ulster have begun their return to match week action – culminating with Friday’s interpro with URC leaders Leinster – with a certain amount of intent after announcing the signing of backrower Juarno Augustus from Northampton Saints.
The 26-year-old South African will join the northern province next season on a three-year deal and is expected to bring the considerable power and explosiveness he has shown at Franklin’s Gardens over the last number of seasons, including the previous campaign’s Premiership triumph, to the Kingspan Stadium.
“It’s a statement of where we want to get to,” said Ulster head coach Richie Murphy.
“He’s a top-class player, he’s 26 years old and he’s in his prime.
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“He’s been a very effective ball carrier in the Premiership the last few seasons, so we’re really delighted to get him here.”
As for this weekend, Ulster will be taking on the unbeaten URC pacesetters with Nick Timoney released from Ireland camp while hooker Tom Stewart should get his first gametime of the season after recovering from his ankle issue.
Jacob Stockdale has shipped what Murphy described as a “considerable hamstring injury,” and is not only ruled out of Ireland duty this weekend but will seemingly be missing in action for Ulster for a number of weeks.
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The northern province, currently seventh in the table and coming off a particularly disappointing defeat at Cardiff last time out, where they surrendered a 19-0 lead, will be going all out to derail what is expected to be a robust enough Leinster even though they are considerably diluted by Ireland commitments.
“They’ve an incredible squad, very strong,” said Murphy.
“But we’re very excited, we’ve worked hard over the last few weeks and we feel that areas of our game that we’ve focused on have improved, so no better test than Leinster.”
