Head coach Gary Longwell has named an experimental Ravens team for the Inter-provincial fixture against Connacht A at Deramore Park on Wednesday (kick off 5pm).<\/p>\n
Longwell has decided against selecting any club players from Dungannon and Ballynahinch as they face a top of the table clash in the First Trust Ulster Senior League on Saturday. Conor Gaston, who is affiliated to Dungannon, is named but he is a member of the Phoenix Academy. Michael Allen, who won his first senior Ulster cap recently, will captain the side from outside centre.<\/p>\n
Belfast Harlequins prop Richard Lutton will join Ballymena duo John Burns and Conor Carey in the front row. Michael Shiels (Rainey) and David Houston (City of Derry) will play their first games at this level after impressing for their clubs in the Ulster Bank League. The back row of Conor Joyce, Dominic Gallagher and Neil Faloon is a dynamic one and they will face a difficult task against the abrasive Connacht loose trio.<\/p>\n
Former Ireland U20s players James McKinney will be joined at half back by Queen\u2019s team mate Paddy Farrell. Luke Marshall and Michael Allen will form an exciting centre partnership which should cause problems to the visiting defence. Chris Quinn, who has been in good try scoring form for Queen\u2019s this season, is joined in the back three by Phoenix Academy players Conor Gaston and Ricky Andrew.<\/p>\n
Banbridge prop Michael Cromie will join Ballymena players Andrew Warwick, Stephen Mulholland and Paul Pritchard in providing forward cover from the bench. City of Derry scrumhalf Andrew Semple, and Johnny Burgess and Taylor Acheson from Malone, are the backline replacements.<\/p>\n
Commenting on selection, Longwell said: \u201cWe have named a fairly young side for this game but we thought it was the right time to give opportunities to some of the players who have shown good form in the All Ireland League. The clubs in Ulster are doing well in their respective leagues and it is important to reward players when they are playing well. It gives us an opportunity to have a closer look at some of the players who have been on our radar. There are some interesting combinations all over the field so it will be intriguing to see how they get on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Longwell is expecting his troops to be tested by the visiting team: \u201cConnacht are travelling with a quality squad, they will have a number of professional and development players involved so they will be very difficult opposition. But we will focus on our own game and hopefully we can put in a good performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ravens XV & replacements to play Connacht A, Deramore Park, Wednesday 7th March (kick off 5pm):
\n1 Richard Lutton (Belfast Harlequins)
\n2 John Burns (Ballymena)
\n3 Conor Carey (Ballymena)
\n4 Michael Shiels (Rainey)
\n5 David Houston (City of Derry)
\n6 Conor Joyce Malone)
\n7 Dominic Gallagher (Dublin University)
\n8 Neil Faloon (Armagh)
\n9 Paddy Farrell (Queen\u2019s University)
\n10 James McKinney (Queen\u2019s University)
\n11 Chris Quinn (Queen\u2019s University)
\n12 Luke Marshall (Ballymena)
\n13 Michael Allen (Belfast Harlequins) (capt)
\n14 Conor Gaston (Dungannon)
\n15 Ricky Andrew (Ballymena)<\/p>\n
16 Andrew Warwick (Ballymena)
\n17 Michael Cromie (Banbridge)
\n18 Stephen Mulholland (Ballymena)
\n19 Paul Pritchard (Ballymena)
\n20 Andrew Semple (City of Derry)
\n21 Johnny Burgess (Malone)
\n22 Taylor Acheson (Malone)<\/p>\n
Connacht XV & replacements
\n1 Denis Buckley
\n2 Kevin O\u2019Byrne
\n3 Stewart Maguire
\n4 Brian Moylett
\n5 Mick Kearney
\n6 Dave Heffernan
\n7 Eoghan Grace (capt)
\n8 Eoin McKeon
\n9 Dave Moore
\n10 Jack Carty
\n11 Mark McCrea
\n12 Tadhg Leader
\n13 Brian Murphy
\n14 Matt Dever
\n15 Callum Boland<\/p>\n
16 Stevie Collins
\n17 Finlay Bealham
\n18 Peter Borlase
\n19 Conor Kindregan
\n20 Isaac O\u2019Grady
\n21 Marcus Walsh
\n22 Darragh Leader
\n23 Conor Fitzgibbon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Head coach Gary Longwell has named an experimental Ravens team for the Inter-provincial fixture against Connacht A at Deramore Park on Wednesday (kick off 5pm). Longwell has decided against selecting any club players from Dungannon and Ballynahinch as they face a top of the table clash in the First Trust Ulster Senior League on Saturday. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5888,17362,6431,6332,5769,4465,3959,4979,1997],"class_list":["post-23286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ulster-rugby","tag-a","tag-connacht","tag-face","tag-named","tag-official","tag-ravens","tag-rugby","tag-team","tag-ulster"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23287,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23286\/revisions\/23287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}