CONNACHT HAVE received a big boost ahead of Saturday’s URC semi-final against the Stormers with all 23 players who saw off Ulster in the quarter-finals in Belfast at the weekend coming through unscathed.

They will be joined by five other squad members when they depart on Tuesday from Galway for the clash against the champions at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday.

Irish winger Mack Hansen suffered a nasty head gash in the win in a collision with the other winger John Porch, while a few of the forwards suffered heavy knocks, but all are available for the trip to South Africa.

Head coach Pete Wilkins said they had a plan in place for a potential trip to South Africa ahead of going to Kingspan Stadium where they emerged 15-10 winners on Friday evening to advance to the last four of the competition for the first time since they won it in 2016.

“We trained well today, we had a double day. That Friday night game against Ulster gives us an extra recovery day, so I suppose today is a combination of a typical Monday and a typical Tuesday,” said Wilkins.

“We will travel on Tuesday, we will arrive on Wednesday morning in Cape Town. We will have Wednesday to acclimatise and recover from the travel and have a few informal meetings.

“We will get a good training session in on Thursday and have the captain’s run on Friday, so there is a nice flow to the week given the travel that’s in it.

“The fact that we are at sea level, that there’s only an hour in the difference, so there are certainly no excuses in there for us not to put in a performance and I think the guys are excited about that and are really ready to go,” he added.