Instonians seeking home win over UCC in pursuit of fifth straight All Ireland League promotion

Paul Pritchard’s side are third and welcome ninth-placed UCC to Shaw’s Bridge in their last home game of the season and the player/coach is hoping for a better performance than his side produced in last Saturday’s defeat against Garryowen.

“Really disappointing one last week, just thought that our decision making wasn't great,” said Pritchard. “We felt like we gifted them everything. I don't think they had to work awfully hard to get as many scores as they did.

“We made eight line-breaks in the game, which against a good team should result in a win for us, but we just couldn't do it. So we're really disappointed, but we've just got to look forward now.

“We've got two big games to go. Obviously, we want to win both of them and then see where we finish up and what happens after that, but plenty to work on from the weekend and hopefully we've fixed a bit of it for this weekend.”

Pritchard believes if Instonians get their performance right the result will look after itself.

“It's just always the same really for us, we're just needing to get our focus up. I think we've had some outstanding performances this year,” he added.

“We’ve got to keep the standards up as well, making sure we're consistent and working out the things to help us be consistent each week. Obviously, it's our first time in 1B and it's a tough league.

“Every week's a new set of challenges. There's no real easy game, there's no games we're looking at when you’re fairly confident that we're going to get five points.

“It's tough and I think it's just trying to manage that with the group. We'll take a lot of learning from this year and try and improve going into next year as well.”

Instonians had won 32 consecutive home games with 30 bonus points but have lost their last two games at Shaw’s Bridge, and Pritchard is determined UCC don’t become the third club to win in Belfast this season.

“UCC are a team that's fighting to stay out of that relegation play-off,” he said. “They're a good team, they'll make things very difficult for us.

“It's certainly going to take a lot of hard work and more accuracy than what we had last week to get the win. I'd say if we can get a performance a little bit better than what it was last week, then we'll be hopeful.

“They've got a big physical pack, they're a physical team, sort of what you think when you think of Cork sometimes. I'm looking forward to that side of it, to be honest. I think as a group, when we played them earlier in the season that was probably our first game where we found it really physical.

“I think we've come a long way since then. I'm looking forward to seeing how the lads do in that physical battle this week, that'll be key. If we can dominate game line, then I'd be hopeful that we'll be able to put in a good performance.”

Flanker Mark Lee returns to the back row after missing last week, prop Anton Lupari captains the side from the front row with Ulster prop Callum Reid on the bench.

Club captain David Whitten and winger Hugo Ellerby are out with long-term injuries.