Friday, 6 October - The Sportsground, Galway
Kick-off: 1830 BST

Forecast: Light Rain (70%)/ Moderate winds (S/West - 15 Mph)

Live Commentary and Updates: Galway Bay FM (live commentary with Rob Murphy) Radio Ulster MW and on BBC website (Updates),

The Connacht side for their Magners League clash against Ulster on Friday shows two changes to the team which played Leinster last weekend.

Ray Ofisa comes into the side in place of Matt Lacey, making his first competitive start for the province and Keith Matthews comes back onto the left wing in place of the injured Conor McPhillips (hamstring).

Connacht coach Michael Bradley says that the arrival on Friday of Celtic League champions Ulster is a great opportunity for his side to get back to winning ways. He said that while they were disappointed with the way the Leinster game finished, there were still plenty of positives to take from the game.The sides were level with six minutes remaining but Leinster secured a 31-16 win thanks to two tries in stoppage time in front of a record 3,678 crowd at the Sportsground.

"We were disappointed with the way the game finished. We had recovered well from conceding a soft try in the opening minute," said Bradley."We kept our composure after giving away such a soft score early on. We spoke at half-time about needing to maintain that composure for the entire second-half. But we did that for just 30 minutes. We were level then but lost our way in the closing minutes. That was disappointing, but there were a lot of positives in the game for us and we will build on them. Leinster weren’t causing us too many problems and I think if we kept our composure we’d have won the game.We need to keep up our level of intensity for the entire match. But we will work on that this week. We are looking forward to the game on Friday."

Ulster announced their starting XV to face Connacht this Friday evening at The Sportsground in Galway; it shows three changes to that which was defeated by Munster last weekend.

Centre Paul Steinmetz and winger Tommy Bowe who have not fully recovered from injuries sustained last week and are replaced by Kevin Maggs and Andrew Maxwell with Scott Young drafted on to the bench, while in the back row, Stephen Ferris starts this week ahead of Neil McMillan. 

Form: Connacht ended a four match losing run against Ulster with their 22-12 win at the Sportsground on New Year’s Eve last season. Away from home against fellow Irish sides the Ulstermen have won just once since September 2004: 20-17 over Munster at Cork on 3 December 2005. A win would take Ulster back to the top of the Magners League.

Connacht: 15 Daniel Riordan, 14 Matt Mostyn, 13 Darren Yapp, 12 Gavin Williams, 11 Keith Matthews, 10 Mark McHugh, 9 Chris Keane, 8 Colm Rigney, 7 Ray Ofisa, 6 John Muldoon, 5 Andrew Farley (c), 4 David Gannon, 3 Ray Hogan, 2 John Fogarty, 1 Brett Wilkinson.

Replacements: 16 Adrian Flavin, 17 Brett Sturgess, 18 Michael Swift, 19 Matt Lacey, 20 Tom Tierney, 21 Paul Warwick, 22 Ted Robinson.

Ulster: 15  Bryn Cunningham; 14  Andrew Maxwell; 13  Kevin Maggs; 12  Paddy Wallace; 11  Andrew Trimble; 10  David Humphreys; 9  Isaac Boss; 1  Justin Fitzpatrick; 2  Rory Best; 3  Bryan Young; 4  Justin Harrison; 5  Matt McCullough; 6  Neil Best; 7  Stephen Ferris; 8  Roger Wilson

Replacements: 16 Paul Shields; 17 Declan Fitzpatrick; 18 Tim Barker; 19 Kieron Dawson; 20 Neil McMillan; 21 Kieran Campbell; 22 Scott Young