Munster will travel to Ravenhill on Friday night warned that if they repeat the high penalty count they racked up at Castres last week they will be ruthlessly punished by a multi-threat Ulster attack on their return to URC action.
An off-form Champions Cup pool night in France saw Munster lose 16-14 to Castres, the concession of 17 penalties compounded error after error. Skills coach Mossy Lawler insisted this weekend’s derby rivals, a point and one place above them in the league standings in 10th place, could make his side pay if Munster did not clean up their act, despite Ulster having shipped more than 100 points to Toulouse and Bordeaux-Bègles combined in their last two European outings.
“It's accuracy in our tackle, it's our ability to understand where we are on the pitch,” Lawler said of what was required by the Munster players when out of possession.
“If you're at the bottom of a ruck, it's making sure that we're getting out as quickly as possible or are showing good pictures and if we get lazy at all, it's something that we need to be able to control.
“Richie Murphy's done a great job since he went in (as Ulster head coach). He's revitalised them and what they're doing with the ball. You can see how much possession they want, they want to hold onto the ball now. They've got some serious weapons up front, and some really good, effective backs in the back three.
“So they're actually a threat all over the park. We just have to be at our best defensively, and making sure that we're disciplined, unlike we were last week, and making sure we're denying them any access into our half.”
The Castres game also lost Munster the services of injured players Thaakir Abrahams, Diarmuid Barron, Dian Bleuler, Peter O’Mahony, and Craig Casey, whose fellow scurm-half Conor Murray remains sidelined with an elbow injury.
There are six changes in total from the starting team in Castres, Shane Daly returning on the left wing after starting at full-back the previous week against Stade Francais while Gavin Coombes is restored at No.8 having been rotated out of the squad in France as Brian Gleeson drops to the banch.
John Ryan starts at loosehead while Paddy Patterson starts at number nine and Jack O’Donoghue comes off the bench to captain the side from blindside flanker. Tom Ahern, a replacement last Friday, replaces Tadhg Beirne at lock as the club captain and Ireland forward is stood down under IRFU player management guidelines, with Ulster missing internationals Iain Henderson and Cormac Izuchukwu.
John Cooney does return at scrum-half for the home side following a hamstring injury having missed the 40-19 Bordeaux home loss last Saturday, which followed on from a 61-21 hammering in Toulouse.
“I don't think we've looked at those results as a scope of where Ulster are,” Lawler said. “They've played against two massive teams in Toulouse and Bordeaux. Ulster were still in the game after 65 minutes against Bordeaux and they played some really good rugby.
“So it's a huge challenge, Ravenhill is a great place to go and play, and it's an Irish derby. So really, really looking forward to it but it's certainly going to be a massive challenge for us.”
: M Lowry; W Kok, J Postlethwaite, S McCloskey, Z Ward; A Morgan, J Cooney; A Warwick, R Herring, T O’Toole; A O’Connor – captain, K Treadwell; J McNabney, Marcus Rea, D McCann.
: J Andrew, E O’Sullivan, S Wilson, H Sheridan, Matty Rea, D Shanahan, J Murphy, R Telfer.
: M Haley; C Nash, T Farrell, A Nankivell, S Daly; J Crowley, P Patterson; J Ryan, N Scannell, S Archer; T Ahern, F Wycherley; J O’Donoghue - captain, J Hodnett, G Coombes.
: E Clarke, D Kilcoyne, O Jager, E O’Connell, A Kendellen, E Coughlan, R Scannell, B Gleeson.
: Ben Whitehouse (Wales)