This was a massive weekend for Irish Rugby. Ireland beat South Africa for the first time in over 30 years in a thrilling encounter at Landsdowne Road. In the Celtic League, two out of the three provinces in action won, with Leinster losing out narrowly to Llanelli today.
Leinster coach Declan Kidney is waiting for a number of fitness reports before settling on his team for Sunday’s Celtic League game with the Scarlets. With this in mind Kidney has named a squad of 24 for the trip to Wrexham which includes Victor Costello who is ready to play again after recovering from a rib injury.
This Saturday night Munster play their second Celtic League game of the season at Musgrave Park, against Newport Gwent Dragons.
This weekend Ulster travel to Scotland to face the Borders in a bottom of the table clash. Ulster who’ve been having a miserable season thusfar will be looking to beat The Borders and try and return to winning ways.
Eddie O’Sullivan has named his Irish team to face South Africa on Saturday in Landsdowne Road, and as expected Johnny O’Connor will make his debut at openside flanker.
Ulster’s season seems to be going from bad to worse as they slumped to a fourth sucessive defeat at Ravenhill and now are in second last in the Celtic League, a very dissapointing position for a side that finished second in the same tournament last season.
Leinster have continued their impressive form with their eight win in a row, having seen off the challenge posed by Connacht by 18 points to 9. Second half tries from Niall Ronan and Felipe Contepomi gave Leinster the victory.
Connacht coach Michael Bradley has decided to stick with the formula that gave his side an impressive win over Narbonne last week in the European Challenge Cup.
With many of his first choice players unavailable due to international commitments Declan Kidney has decided to delay the naming of his side until shortly before kick off. Kidney has however named a 26 man squad.
Due to the absense of a number of the Munster players due to International commitments, coach Alan Gaffney was forced to make at least 8 changes to the Munster side that beat the Ospreys at the weekend. In addition to the changes due to missing players, Gaffney has decided to rest Jim Williams, Anthony Horgan and Rob Henderson.