Ulster’s Injury Update and Speculative 15 to Face Dragons at Rodney Parade.

Ulster have released their squad update today signalling the return of 5 players:

“Cormac Izuchukwu (knee), Jordi Murphy (knee), Tom Stewart (toe), Matty Rea (hamstring), and Stewart Moore (knee) have all resumed full team training following their respective injuries, and are available for team selection.”

Whilst all those Ulster players called up to the Ireland squad, excluding Iain Henderson and Rob Herring have all been released to be available for selection for this week’s URC fixture, those players available are: Robert Baloucoune, Nick Timoney, James Hume, Michael Lowry, Kieran Treadwell and Tom O’Toole.

Ulster’s injury list is finally starting to shrink with John Cooney, Jacob Stockdale, Will Addison, Luke Marshall the only players remaining on the list, and only Ethan McIlroy joining the injured ranks.

With so many players back in contention I thought it would be fun to, once again, come up with my speculative 15 to face the Dragons, they are as follows:

1. Andy Warwick

2. John Andrew

3. Marty Moore

4. Alan O’Connor

5. Kieran Treadwell

6. Greg Jones

7. Nick Timoney

8. Duane Vermeulen

9. Nathan Doak

10. Billy Burns

11. Rob Lyttle

12. Stuart McCloskey

13. James Hume

14. Robert Baloucoune

15. Michael Lowry.

It’s a really exciting time for Ulster, who have weathered an incredible injury storm and look to be getting close to a full-strength team again. There are few changes I would ideally make to this squad. Rob Herring and John Cooney back in would be great, both of which seem to be just around the corner with calf injuries. Getting Iain Henderson back would be huge, and as we saw in Saturday’s fixture, he’s back fit and playing, just need to wait for his international duties to wrap up. Then, Jacob Stockdale back in the mix and Ulster are competing to their full potential. I know Stockdale is a long way off and we’ll have to cope without him, but he seems to be the only player who has had a recent, severe injury that requires plenty of time out. Although we’ve had no recent update, you would have to imagine both Will Addison and Luke Marshall are well along the recovery path, if not nearing the end of it (maybe wishful thinking?).