Ulster and Connacht name teams for PRO12 games

Jared Payne will make his Ulster debut in tomorrow night's RaboDirect PRO12 game versus Cardiff at Ravenhill (7.05pm).

The New Zealander will start at fullback in place of Adam D'Arcy who drops to the bench. The backline is otherwise unchanged from the side that played Aironi on Saturday.

There are three personnel changes up front with Declan Fitzpatrick is named at loosehead prop with Paddy McAllister named among the replacements. Andi kyriacou and Jerry Cronin complete the front row.

Lewis Stevenson comes in to partner Dan Tuohy in the second row, with Neil McComb providing positional cover on the bench.

In the back row, Robbie Diack is named at number 8 meaning Chris Henry moves round to the openside flanker berth.

Mike McComish may make his first competitive appearance for Ulster from the bench, having tasted some action in pre-season.

Callum Black is the only casualty in the Ulster ranks having been ruled out of the Edinburgh game due to a neck injury.

Eric Elwood has made just two changes to the starting XV and one on the bench from the squad which has won their first two games of the RaboDirect PRO12 for his side’s clash with Edinburgh in Murrayfield tomorrow night (7.30pm).

Ethienne Reynecke starts at hooker with Adrian Flavin moving to the bench and Johnny O’Connor replaces Ray Ofisa at openside.

Ofisa will take the place of TJ Anderson on the bench while Dylan Rogers replaces Stewart Maguire as the replacement tighthead prop.

Michael Swift will become the first Connacht player to reach 200 caps this weekend.

The 6’5”, 119kg second row joined Connacht in 2000, holds the highest number of caps in the European Challenge Cup (62) and is just five caps short of Cardiff Blues’ Deiniol Jones (135) who has the record number of league caps.

Ulster: J Payne; C Gilroy, D Cave, N Spence, I Whitten; I Humphreys, P Marshall; D Fitzpatrick, A Kyriacou, J Cronin, L Stevenson, D Tuohy, P Wannenburg, C Henry, R Diack. Replacements: N Brady, P McAllister, A Macklin, N McComb, M McComish, I Porter, P Jackson, A D'Arcy.

Connacht: G Duffy; M McCrea, E Griffin, H Fa’afili, T O’Halloran; M Jarvis, F Murphy; R Loughney, E Reynecke, R Ah You; M Swift, M McCarthy; J Muldoon, J O’Connor, G Naoupu. Replacements: A Flavin, B Wilkinson, D Rogers, D Gannon, R Ofisa, P O’Donohoe, N O’Connor, B Tuohy.