Connacht’s scrum and contact coach Colm Tucker will again lead the province in the absence of head coach Pete Wilkins, who remains on sick leave, for this Saturday’s United Rugby Championship fixture against Munster at a sold-out MacHale Park.
Shayne Bolton is unavailable due to a foot sprain he suffered in last Saturday’s 43-40 defeat to Ospreys, although Tucker said “we’ll see him back sooner rather than later”.
Prop Peter Dooley will miss a number of weeks due to a calf strain and joins longer term casualties Sean O’Brien (hamstring), Ben Murphy (finger) and Byron Ralston (knee).
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Eoin de Buitléar has returned to training after recovering from a thumb fracture, while Bundee Aki, Mack Hansen, Finlay Bealham and captain Cian Prendergast are all back in full training and are expected to feature in the game in Mayo.
For Munster, Tadhg Beirne, Jack Crowley, Conor Murray, Calvin Nash and Peter O’Mahony have all returned to training ahead of Saturday’s game
There is also good news for Munster on the injury front, with Craig Casey (knee), Jack O’Donoghue (ankle), Jean Kleyn (thigh), and Thaakir Abrahams (shoulder) all having returned to full training, while Oli Jager (foot) also returned to training this week after missing last week’s 28-25 defeat to Glasgow.
The availability of Niall Scannell (shoulder) and Billy Burns (shoulder) will be decided later in the week, while Shane Daly (hamstring), Diarmuid Kilgallen (thigh), Mike Haley (ankle), Dave Kilcoyne (thigh), Liam Coombes (chest), Edwin Edogbo (Achilles), Roman Salanoa (knee) all continue with their rehabilitation.
“You have to lean on the experience, and the international quality you have in your group,” said Tucker regarding Connacht’s quartet of Ireland squad members. “They’ve already started playing a huge role in the week and I’m sure they’ll play a massive role on Saturday for us.”
Saturday’s 26,000-plus sell-out game will be, by some distance, Connacht’s biggest home attendance ever, eclipsing the 9,120 crowd at their first home Heineken Cup game against Toulouse at the Sportsground in November 2011.
“It’s a massively exciting week. Obviously Munster first of all is a huge challenge, they’re welcoming back their internationals as well I’m sure so they’ll be much improved from their trip to Glasgow, even though they had some pockets of great rugby.
“And then for us it’s going to MacHale Park, 26,000 people, sold out very quickly within an hour and a massive spread of ticket sales across all five counties. It’s a massively exciting day for the club.”
As well as this being the first time MacHale Park has hosted a rugby match in its 95-year history, Connacht sit 12th on 31 points and Munster sixth on 34 in the scramble for the top eight play-off places. Accordingly, Tucker said they would endeavour to both treat this as a normal game and embrace the excitement that comes with its uniqueness.
“I think you have to acknowledge the occasion but you have to be process-driven and calm in how you train, we have to go through the exact same steps every week.
“It’s a very special week, we have acknowledged that as a group. We’ve spoken about MacHale Park and there’s a lot of excitement within the group about going up there but we’ll build calmly through the week and get a feel about it when we go up there on Friday.
“The excitement of our support and what they will bring will be fantastic. We’re looking forward to it, but we have to go through the same processes and practices when we train to make sure we’re putting ourselves in the best place to perform on Saturday.”
Connacht have not brought in any additional coaching help in the absence of Wilkins.
“No, we’ve kept to what we have ourselves,” said Tucker. “Myself, Scott Fardy, Juhn ‘Mul’ (Muldoon) and Mark Sexton – the four of us are just leading the group for this week.
“A little bit of a dissemination of duties around us a little bit more, but the four of us are very clear in how we want to play and how we want to approach the game. We’re going to be leading it.
“We have covered a lot of bases, and feel we have a lot of experience between the four of us, a lot of good rugby knowledge and leaning heavily on the leadership group here, we feel we’ll have the team in a good place to perform on Saturday.”
Separately, Connacht Rugby and Intersport Elverys have renewed their long-standing partnership, which dates back to 2010, which will see the brand remain as the club’s official retail partner until 2029.
