Connacht v Leinster in the URC: kick-off time, TV details and team news

It is an historic weekend for Connacht as they open their new Clan Stand. 

NEW ERA: Connacht will open their new stand this weekend as they welcome Leinster to the Dexcom Stadium for their URC interpro. Picture: ©INPHO/James Crombie

It will be an historic day for Connacht as they open their new Clan Stand which will be home to 6,555 supporters and increases the capacity of the Dexcom Stadium to approximately 12,500. Leinster were the first team which Connacht ever played 140 years ago and it is fitting that as the province enters a new era that their interpro rivals will be the team they face in front of the new stand. 

It has been an up and down season for Connacht but they will be hoping for consistency with another performance like against Montauban while Leinster will be hoping to continue their winning ways. In a game that sold out in December this promises to be a great occasion and an intriguing clash.

Here's all you need to know ahead of the game.

Where's the game being played?

The game will take place at the Dexcom Stadium in front of the new Clan Stand (North Stand) this Saturday.

What time is kick-off?

The match kicks off at 5.30pm on Saturday January 24.

Where can I watch?

The game will be shown live on Premier Sports 1.

Who is the referee?

Eoghan Cross will be the man in the middle with Andrew Brace and Tomás O'Sullivan running the line and Leo Colgan in the TMO hotseat in an all Ireland referee team.

What's the team news

Stuart Lancaster says that opening of the completed Clan Stand at Dexcom Stadium will be a game-changer for Connacht but he has warned his men not to get distracted by the occasion when they take on URC champions Leinster at the €40m redeveloped facility in Galway on Saturday evening.

Lancaster knows that Connacht, who have only won two of their eight league games so far this season, need to make up ground if they are to make the top eight but he has no doubt this is the start of a new era for the game in the west of Ireland.

The new high performance centre has been open since the end of last season but Lancaster took his squad up to the corporate level of the empty Clan Stand last Saturday night ahead of their Challenge Cup clash with Montauban when the new stadium dressing rooms and dugouts were used for the first time.

“I took the players up to the stand on the third floor before the game and got them to look down on the pitch and said about the type of rugby the supporters want to see,” said Lancaster.

“The new stand opening next week and our opportunity to use the change rooms, it feels like it's the start of a new era for Connacht rugby. We wanted to start this chapter with a really good win and I think we did that,” he said after their 75-14 trouncing of the French side.

Lancaster wants his squad to embrace the new era but is mindful they can’t get distracted either.

“The one thing I've found both internationally and things like that, I've got a reasonable experience now of dealing with these sorts of situations, the one thing is to make sure that you don't get distracted during the week and with all the tickets, the family and friends and so on. There's more media, there's more everything isn't there? But it's not the game that's different, it's everything that surrounds the game that's different, so I've got to make sure the players stay firmly focused and on point with what it takes to win.

So, as an organisation we need to be on point, preparing properly and my job as a coach is to make sure the players are mentally prepared and we deal with any distractions early in the week, so we're not dealing with any distractions come game day.

“But yeah, it'll be huge, it'll be huge and no one denies that, so you can use it as a weight around your neck or you can use it as a sense of, oh my God, we've waited so long for this moment, so let's rip in.

“It is a game-changer, the stand opening for us and the support we know the people will bring next weekend and for every home game will help us hugely, so we are counting on our supporters and I'm sure the players will repay that support,” added Lancaster.

Connacht have lost their last ten games to Leinster, the most recent coming earlier this month in a 52-17 defeat at Aviva Stadium and Lancaster knows it will take something special against his former side even if Leo Cullen’s men are without some of their internationals.

“The big lesson was, which I was trying to impress on the players, is that when you play against the best players or the best teams, it's the speed at which they do things and we can try and prepare them the best we can in training but until they actually physically feel it. Then they understand what a good team can do if you've got Sam Prendergast who can give you the ball. He can kick the ball over the top, he can kick the ball to the edges, he can play 30-40 metre passes, on a 70 metre pitch. If you don't get your defensive speed to set right and your ability to loosen to get defensive width, then you're in trouble and that was the big lesson from that game and I think that's been a big focus area for us.

“I know I've been saying it for a while, but we have got a very good group of young players coming through and I see a lot of things that you wouldn't see through the way we're training and the way we're preparing the players. So I think the confidence is growing,” he added. John Fallon

***

It was the venue where he enjoyed his first game as senior coach of the province and now Jacques Nienaber is excited to be heading back to an enhanced Dexcom Stadium with Leinster this weekend.

Just a few short weeks after guiding his native South Africa to a second successive Rugby World Cup title, Nienaber was in Galway on December 2, 2023, as his new employers edged out Connacht thanks to a stoppage-time try from the soon to be western-bound Ciaran Frawley.

8,129 spectators were in attendance for that game, but an even healthier atmosphere is anticipated when the two sides meet at Dexcom in the United Rugby Championship on Saturday.

Having operated under a reduced capacity up to this point in the season, Connacht will finally be able to welcome supporters to their new North Stand – now known as ‘the Clan Stand’- this weekend.

The presence of Stuart Lancaster (Nienaber’s predecessor as Leinster senior coach) at the helm of the westerners adds considerable intrigue to this fixture and Saturday just gone saw them responding to a difficult run of results with an emphatic 75-14 victory over Montauban in the pool stages of the EPCR Challenge Cup.

“If you look at this last weekend, their performance, and I thought they were a little bit unlucky in the previous game [a two-point defeat to Montpellier]. So, they're a team that's building nice momentum going into this game. It's massively exciting for us,” Nienaber remarked at a Leinster media briefing yesterday.

“The whole occasion, such a privilege to be part of it and I think there will be no lack of motivation. There's always a little bit of spice in Interpros. Which is good and then the knowledge between the players here and Stuart.

“There's good knowledge between the two teams which makes for a scintillating match, hopefully. Coaching against Stu, even when I was with Munster in 2016-17, it's exciting, exhilarating. There's always some trick plays, trick moves and things that you have to look out for and it's so stimulating.

"It keeps you up at night. You don't sleep a lot in the week to try and cover all the spaces that he will create with his attack.” Although the aforementioned Frawley and Jack Conan are due to be available for selection after missing out on last Saturday’s visit to Bayonne in the European Champions Cup, Jimmy O’Brien (hamstring), Tommy O’Brien, Tadhg Furlong (both calf) and Robbie Henshaw (knee) will all require further assessment before a decision is made on their participation for the Connacht game.

Additionally, long-term absentees Hugo Keenan and Jamie Osborne have increased their on-field training exposure but are still out of contention for this weekend.

Meanwhile, there was no further update in yesterday’s squad bulletin on Ryan Baird, Jordan Larmour, Paddy McCarthy, Andrew Porter and Rabah Slimani.

Even though only a portion of the above-mentioned players were part of the touring party in Australia, Nienaber (a qualified physiotherapist) was asked if having so much of the squad on British & Irish Lions duty last summer has played a role in Leinster dealing with a significant injury list throughout this season.

While he is uncertain if the Lions tour is a contributing factor behind some of the missing bodies they have had to deal with, Nienaber acknowledged the province didn’t have the most ideal lead-in to the current campaign.

“If I put a physio hat on, they finished British & Irish Lions and then they had a five-week off period. Then I would say they had to almost play Munster [in October], because [otherwise] they don't play any rugby before they go into New Zealand [with Ireland]. You kind of had to get them back playing Munster,” Nienaber added.

“I think it's definitely not the optimal pre-season, but it is just the cards [you’re dealt]. If that is the reason for the injuries, I can't say that. No one can say that.

“It's impossible to say it is the case or it's not the case, because there are players who went on the British & Irish Lions tour who are playing all the games. Sometimes it's luck, but I think if you could have planned a different pre-season, you would have.” Daire Walsh