Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

Big al still a bit salty after last night lol.

Stuart is in the form of his life was Ireland's player of the tournament this 6ns and rightly deserves the Irish 12 spot and is a fine player, but when the dust is settled and the boots are hung up in one of them will be remembered as an Ireland great, a multiple test lion, a world player of the year nominee, league player of the year, and domestic competition winner on two continents. The other will be Stuart McCloskey.

maybe down there. , but it’s no surprise to any Ulster supporter that once McCloskey got a chance, he raised the performance bar of the Irish 12’s.

Poor Robbie Henshaws career as Ireland 12 has been quickly forgotten by some.

what did Henderson say?

Trying to troll opposition fans after their team has won is new approach, hopefully it doesn't catch on.

Anyway- few interesting games for us this afternoon, think sharks and Benetton winning is probably best for us. Hopefully we push on to the end of the season but still think we've left too much to do with some silly losses earlier in the season.

I've no idea.

Dexicom. Thank you Ian Madigan during buildup to Glasgow Leinster game. And there was Shane Horgalan who was very positive about Tiernan O'Hallahan. I do love our Leinster friends

A full Ulster side wins that game.

From what I've seen so far it's fair to say I was wrong about Lancaster that even though he is a excellent coach and mentor I just didnt see us competing at a high enough level to be in with a chance of a top 8. With 4 tough games left i just dont see us picking up enough points to make it into the top 8. Even if we dont achieve it this season has been an improvement but we are still short of a few players that would make us a definite top 8 team

Looking at the games I think we might end up in a shoot out with Munster for the last spot. Imo we need 14 pts from a possible 25 and a couple of other results to go our way.

Had hoped for a big response from Bundee this week and delivered. Granted that was a very weak Ulster centre partnership.

Looking at the contest for top 8 in the URC, Munster has a job on its hands. Not saying Connachts is easier but the team with the belief at the moment is coming from the west

Jack Carty has confirmed he is retiring at the end of the season. A great servant best of luck to him with everything in the future

Jack's still playing good rugby but it's probably a good time for him to retire, seems he's quite busy outside of rugby.

Hopefully the Ioane to Ulster rumours are more Jackman bullshit, we need him for another season, after which we will hopefully have a depth chart something like:

Frawley, Naughton, O'Shaughnessy

I believe that we have 33 senior players confirmed for next season, with question marks over the following 11:

Buckley, Dooley, Lasisi, Aungier, Bealham, Dowling, Hurley-Langton, McCormack, Hawkshaw, Mullins, West

Plus I'd imagine Billy Bohan graduates from the academy a year early.

2026 senior squad (ages at 01/09/2026), italics yet to be confirmed.

LHP

Jordan Duggan (28)

Francois van Wyk (35)

Denis Buckley (36)

Peter Dooley (32)

Temi Lasisi (25)

HK

Eoin de Buitléar (24)

Dave Heffernan (35)

Dylan Tierney-Martin (27)

Matthew Victory (23)

THP

Fiachna Barrett (23)

Sam Illo (25)

Jack Aungier (27)

Finlay Bealham (34)

LK

Darragh Murray (25)

Niall Murray (26)

David O'Connor (31)

Oisin Dowling (29)

BR

Paul Boyle (29)

Will Connors (30)

Sean Jansen (27)

Josh Murphy (31)

Sean O'Brien (26)

Cian Prendergast (26)

Shamus Hurley-Langton (26)

Oisin McCormack (25)

SH

Caolin Blade (32)

Ben Murphy (25)

Colm Reilly (27)

OH

Ciaran Frawley (28)

Josh Ioane (31)

CT

Bundee Aki (36)

John Devine (22)

Cathal Forde (24)

Hugh Gavin (22)

Byron Ralston (26)

David Hawkshaw (27)

B3

Shayne Bolton (26)

Sam Gilbert (27)

Mack Hansen (28)

Shane Jennings (25)

Sean Naughton (21)

Finn Treacy (22)

Chay Mullins (24)

Harry West (23)