Opportunity knocks for young players despite big signings

The BKT United Rugby Championship is back this weekend. Munster will host Connacht in the opening Irish interprovincial clash, while Leinster will travel to Edinburgh and Ulster host Glasgow.

Different factors will come into the selection process for these games. While the opening rounds of the URC action rarely sees any international presence, this season the returning internationals will be afforded some flexibility due to the constraints that the Emerging Ireland tour might pull on the provinces resources.

Squad updates across the summer have shown the numbers that have come in and gone out of each squad. There seems to be a general directive to tighten up on squad sizes across the Irish provinces. Connacht and Ulster have both offloaded more than they brought in this season.

Josh Ioane is the big summer signing for Connacht. Along with the return of Mack Hansen and Santiago Cordero, there's at least half a backline of elite attacking talent for Connacht to work with.

However, their squad overall has become lighter which is a slight worry for the sustainability of their performance across a season.

They have offloaded experienced players like Jarrad Butler, Tom Daly and Gavin Thornbury, Tiernan O' Halloran has retired, and they’ve lost a pair of backs to Munster in the shape of Diarmuid Kilgallen and Tom Farrell.

Outside of Josh Ioane, they’ve three academy graduates in Chay Mullins, Hugh Gavin and Matthew Devine, two of which are travelling with Simon Easterby’s emerging Ireland tour and won’t be available to play for a few rounds of the URC.

If the forward pack, now led by new captain, Cian Prendergast, can win clean ball or even get parity at the setpiece, Connacht's attack will score a lot of tries

They’ve signed a pair