CONNACHT HEAD COACH Pete Wilkins has confirmed that loosehead Jordan Duggan (ankle), lock Joe Joyce (neck), back row Cian Prendergast (HIA) and out-half Josh Ioane (HIA) should all be available to face Ulster in Saturday’s URC interpro at Kingspan Stadium.

Wilkins will have almost a full deck to choose from for Connacht’s trip to Belfast, with only Shamus Hurley-Langton (shoulder), JJ Hanrahan (knee) and Sam Illo (ankle) definitively ruled out.

There was a relatively positive prognosis on the injury suffered by Illo during the Round 2 victory over the Sharks, however, with Connacht discovering that the 23-year-old tighthead will not require surgery and will instead miss around six weeks with a high-ankle sprain.

Connacht and Ulster will meet at Ravenhill in polar opposite form, with Wilkins’ western province travelling to Belfast on the back of two wins whereas Ulster’s 27,000-kilometre round trip to South Africa yielded only a single bonus point in two comprehensive defeats.

But Wilkins believes that Ulster shadow-boxed to some degree during their 47-21 defeat to the Bulls in particular, and the Englishman expects Richie Murphy’s side to punch with venom at 8pm on Saturday.

“We have belief coming into this game,” Wilkins said. “We’ve got a degree of form.

“I’m not sure Ulster’s performances in South Africa will worry them too much.

And the reason I say that is I reckon they probably picked that side against the Bulls with Connacht in mind on the other side of it. There were some important players who either weren’t playing or were coming off the bench or were subbed earlier.

“And I think if you hear Richie Murphy’s comments afterwards that they weren’t that disappointed with the result, they were probably looking at it with us in mind. They’ll have some degree of energy preserved from that and to get back in front of their home fans, they will be determined to get off to a good start and try to get into the game as well.

“The first quarter — and half — is crucial in an interpro”, Wilkins said, “and certainly our games against Ulster, they’re one-score games, so it’ll be hotly contested with both sides having periods of momentum at different times.

“We have to acknowledge that in advance and make sure that doesn’t come as a surprise to us. So that is important.”

Wilkins faces a selection dilemma at half-back this week with Caolin Blade performing well off the bench against the Scarlets in Llanelli, and Jack Carty showing glimpses of his longtime class in his start at out-half.

Inarguably, however, Connacht have looked at their most exciting so far this season with new signings Ben Murphy and Josh Ioane in tandem, and the latter is expected to regain the 10 shirt for Saturday’s interpro having followed return-to-play protocols following his head injury against the Sharks.

And Wilkins has been impressed by his pair of recruits, with Wilkins saying of Murphy that “there is an instinctive nature to his game that maybe we hadn’t a chance to see in the limited amount of appearances he had for Leinster.

“Technically, he has the kicking and passing game you want in a scrum-half, and what that means is you have someone you can really rely on with consistency in terms of facilitating the way the team plays.

“When he arrived, it was clear he was already on top of the charts in terms of fitness and that’s also important to how we want to play the game.

“The speed of our nine getting to each attacking breakdown is enormously important to us so that became very clear to us very early on.

“We’ve been delighted with him”, Wilkins added of the 23-year-old Bray native, “and delighted first and foremost we were able to recruit him.”

Wilkins was equally effusive in his praise of out-half Ioane, 29, who joined this summer from Super Rugby’s Chiefs.

“He has the ability and skill to beat a defender or else use his robust presence in contact to recycle the ball when the shape breaks down around him,” Wilkins said of the one-time All Black.

“He has a maturity about him. You can see he has been in and around a few New Zealand rugby programmes and the NPC competitions. He has been with the All Blacks and the Maoris. His rugby IP is very high.

“He’s still in that adjustment period in terms of getting used to the northern hemisphere. The line-speed that’s up against you every weekend is normally higher than down in Super Rugby, and also how hotly contested the attacking breakdowns are, which not only affects the speed of ball delivery but also breaks up the flow of the game that he’s used to.

“So he has to adapt and the early experiences he has had already here are helping with that.

“We’ve been really pleased with Josh.”