McMillan keeps faith as Munster aim to strengthen top-eight foothold against Ulster

Oli Jager moving from the bench to the starting team is Munster's only change for this weekend's visit of Ulster. Pic: Tyler Miller/Sportsfile

Ulster may be travelling south to Limerick in the midst of a severe injury crisis ahead of Saturday’s crucial URC derby with Munster but the home head coach is taking nothing for granted as the southern province focuses in on securing a further foothold in the top eight of the table.

The Race for Eight, to borrow the marketer’s slogan from league headquarters, is down to its last three laps and everything is still to play for. With just seven points separating the Stormers in second place and Connacht in ninth, Munster boss Clayton McMillan is acutely aware that a strong finish to the 18-round regular season could be rewarded with a place in the top four and a badly-needed home play-off quarter-final for the under-pressure Reds, while the alternative could be landing on the outside looking in with envy as the title race reaches its conclusion through the knockout rounds.

Crucially, Munster sit in sixth, a point and a place behind the Ulstermen, and only two points ahead of Connacht, with last weekend’s Round 16 bonus-point win at Benetton, keeping them in the top eight for the time being. After months of inconsistency, now would be the ideal time to start finding some rhythm to Munster’s game and continue where they left off in Treviso seven days earlier.

In selecting the same 23 which travelled to Italy and secured an impressive 45-15 win to rebound from the abject exit from the Challenge Cup at Exeter two weekends before, McMillan has at least stumbled on some consistency in selection. The New Zealander had made just one change to his starting line-up by bringing Oli Jager off the bench after last week’s return from injury to begin at tighthead prop for his first start since January 30 with Michael Ala’alatoa moving to the replacements.

It is what the state of play demands, as attack coach Mike Prendergast acknowledged earlier in the week.

“We always talk about connections and being connected, and you hear about it connecting on and off the pitch, and it is a big thing,” Prendergast said. “When you're playing with the same players, consistently, and that won't always happen because of injuries and because of form, but it's something that we've looked very deeply on over the last couple of weeks as well. What way we've planned in terms of going forward for these two games, but yeah, definitely in terms of just having that familiarity with each other is massively important.

"And look, we've a few players back. You look at our bench. Our bench was very good the other day with the likes of Oli, Edwin, Brian Gleeson coming back just up front… 

"And I think when you're talking high-level games, if you look at the European games at the moment, you look at Bath and you look at, say, Bordeaux the previous two weeks, it's the benches in those games in the last 30 minutes.

"When it's high-end games, that's what you're looking at and I think we've got quite a good squad again going in this weekend, which is really pleasing… 

“Generally in terms of consistency over the next number of weeks, obviously injury will determine one or two performance decisions, but overall what we'd be looking for is more of the same."

Would that Ulster head coach Richie Murphy had the same luxury. The northerner’s flying form threatens to fall out of the sky on their travels south as injuries to experienced frontliners Angus Bell, Scott Wilson, Tom O'Toole, James Hume, Jude Postlethwaite and Bryn Ward sustained in last weekend’s loss to Leinster at Aviva Stadium have added to the casualty list already populated by Nick Timoney, James McNabney, Rob Herring, Robert Baloucoune, Rory McGuire, and Stewart Moore.

Michael Lowry captains Ulster for the first time in a competitive match and leads a starting team containing debuts for academy trio James McKillop, Tom Brigg, and Aitzol Arenzana-King and a first senior start for tighthead prop Bryan O’Connor. With Ireland veteran Iain Henderson and Six Nations hero Stuart McCloskey also kept out of the firing line ahead of a home Challenge Cup semi-final against Exeter Chiefs next Friday, Munster have an excellent opportunity to put together back-to-back URC wins for the first time since their five-match unbeaten start to the season in September and October.

MUNSTER: S Daly; C Nash, T Farrell, A Nankivell, A Smith; J Crowley, C Casey; J Loughman, D Barron, O Jager; J Kleyn, T Beirne – captain; T Ahern, J Hodnett, G Coombes.

Replacements: L Barron, M Milne, M Ala’alatoa, E Edogbo, B Gleeson, B O’Donovan, D Kelly, A Kendellen.

ULSTER: M Lowry – captain; A Arenzana-King, E McIlroy, B Carson, B Moxham; J Flannery, C McKee; E O’Sullivan, J McCormick, B O’Connor; H Sheridan, C Irvine; J McKillop, T Brigg, L McLoughlin.

Replacements: J Andrew, C Reid, T McAllister, J Hopes, Marcus Rea, D Shanahan, J Humphreys, J Scott.

Referee: Sam Grove-White (Scotland)