Pete Wilkins: South Africa tour gives Connacht chance to regroup in United Rugby Championship

Pete Wilkins said the two-game tour of South Africa is a "perfect scenario" for Connacht as they look to regroup following their opening-round mauling by Ulster.

Connacht flew out on Monday ahead of their meeting with defending champions the DHL Stormers on Saturday, live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, boosted by the return of Ireland internationals Bundee Aki, Finlay Bealham and Mack Hansen.

The team remained in Belfast following the 36-10 loss at Kingspan Stadium before travelling down to Dublin on Sunday, and head coach Wilkins has already seen the benefits of that extra time spent together in camp.

He said: "If we go away to Ulster we're often playing on a Friday night, getting on a bus immediately from changing rooms and driving through the night back to Galway and not seeing each other or getting in front of the players for 48 hours until Monday morning.

"For us to go back to the hotel in Belfast, already start some of those conversations, and then travel down to Dublin meant we had a good team briefing yesterday [Sunday].

"The players did some work in their smaller groups in terms of sharing ideas and challenging each other about some of those performance aspects.

"Now we’re off to spend two weeks together in very close proximity with two really exciting games. It couldn’t be better in terms of the template we’ve got in responding and reacting to a performance like that.

"It’s now on us to grab that and we’ve got to make the most of it."

Emerging Ireland quartet Caolin Blade, Sam Illo, Cian Prendergast and Dylan Tierney-Martin have been included in Connacht's 28-man squad but will link up with Simon Easterby's development side after the Stormers game.

Captain Jack Carty and Gavin Thornbury, who stepped in as skipper against