Barbarians’ Red trio to feel at home in Thomond

MUNSTER’S Doug Howlett, Jean de Villiers and Paul Warwick will add a local flavour to the Barbarians squad which returns to Ireland on June 4 for the first time in nine years.

They meet Declan Kidney’s national side at Thomond Park (kick-off 7.45 pm) as part of the invitational team’s summer tour.

Howlett, De Villiers and Warwick have already received invitations to participate and the Barbarians expect to have a top-class international line-up for the match, which will also be given a competitive edge with the Mastercard Tophy up for grabs.

This will be the first time that Ireland has played the Barbarians in Ireland since 2000 but the teams met in Gloucester prior to Ireland’s last southern hemisphere tour in 2008, with Ireland winning 39-14.

Following the game in Limerick, the Ireland squad will depart for New Zealand and Australia to play Test games on June 12 (v All Blacks) and June 26 (Wallabies); coach Kidney also hopes ongoing discussions with the NZRU are successful and that an extra fixture against the New Zealand Maori will take place on June 19.

Meanwhile, Ulster will have Ireland and Lions flanker Stephen Ferris fit for Saturday’s Pool 4 Heineken Cup clash with Stade Francais.

But there are still major doubts over Fijian winger Timoci Nagusa (shoulder) and Springbok prop BJ Botha (shoulder) while skipper Paddy Wallace (ankle) is definitely ruled out.

Declan Fitzpatrick will again start at tight-head while Andrew Trimble and Simon Danielli will almost certainly fill the wing berths. Although academy players Jonny Shiels and Jamie Smith have been added to the 26-man panel, Ian Whitten will resume his midfield partnership with Darren Cave with Chris Henry captaining the side.

Ulster are in second spot in Pool 4, three points behind the Parisian leaders who won for the first time in four visits to Ravenhill exactly 14 months ago in the same Pool stages of the competition.

Ulster’s assistant coach Jeremy Davidson knows what Ulster must do to keep their hopes alive.

“It will be very important for us to give Stade a warm welcome up front in the early exchanges,” he said.

“We must be physical at the start, then we can set our stall out against what is essentially a very strong international team. The players know they all have to play at maximum level for the full 80 minutes.

“They are an exceptionally good team with world-class players in every position.

“It was very disappointing last week against Glasgow. We have to perform this weekend, we know there is a strong team against us, but if we perform to the best of our ability, I feel we can beat any team.

“We are looking for a big performance on Saturday, then we can start thinking about the return leg. Everyone really wants to keep our season alive in both the Heineken Cup and the Magners League.”

ULSTER SQUAD: (Forwards) B Young, T Court, BJ Botha, D Fitzpatrick, J Fitzpatrick, A Kyriacou, N Brady, R Caldwell, E O’Donoghue, D Tuohy, S Ferris, W Faloon, D Pollock, C Henry, TJ Anderson. Backs: J Smith, C Schifcofske, T Nagusa, S Danielli, D Cave, I Whitten, J Shiels, I Humphreys, N O’Connor, I Boss, P Marshall.