Celtic League/Squad news: Ulster coach Mark McCall has supplemented the 22-man squad which was on duty for last Friday's thumping of the Ospreys with the addition of Andrew Trimble and Neil Best. The province's two regular starters on the three-Test tour of New Zealand and Australia are returning from their 10-week pre-season training programmes.
With relatively less upheavals to their squad due to international commitments, Ulster travel to Cork for Saturday's rendezvous with Munster in a relatively cohesive and more advanced state of readiness than their counterparts for this eagerly anticipated meeting of European and Celtic champions. Ulster are also eight places and 11 points ahead of Munster in the table.
Not unreasonably given the circumstances, McCall could even consider leaving the starting XV which helped demolish the Ospreys by 43-7 intact but given the proximity of the Heineken European Cup the likelihood is that both will start.
For their part, Munster will name their side tomorrow and with John Hayes and Denis Leamy ruled out the expectation is that Marcus Horan, newly installed captain Paul O'Connell, Donncha O'Callaghan, David Wallace, Peter Stringer and Ronan O'Gara will all make their seasonal reappearances come kick-off time.
John Kelly, Anthony Horgan and Christian Cullen are all back in training after injuries as well. As interesting will be the confirmation of Munster's squad for the European Cup, the deadline for which expires at noon today. The reigning European champions look noticeably short of options in a number of areas, amongst them hooker, scrumhalf and midfield.
Since last season, three experienced campaigners have departed, namely Rob Henderson, Mike Mullins and Gary Connolly, and with Trevor Halstead still injured, their options have been further depleted with the news that the former Connacht centre James Downey, who had been playing with Munster on a game-to-game basis, has followed ex-Clontarf team-mate Ben Gissing in signing for Calvisano.
To compound this, under-21 centre Ciaran O'Boyle has suffered a broken nose.
A knee injury to their development contracted scrumhalf Chris Delooze leaves little back-up to the contracted pair of Stringer and Tomas O'Leary, hence the likelihood is that Brian O'Meara will be amongst the 38 named.
Recuperation from shoulder operations to both Jerry Flannery (who might be named as one of 10 frontrowers given his hoped-for return before rounds five and six in the New Year) and Denis Fogarty, almost certainly means the loan signing from Saracens Andy Kyriacou will be included along with other new signings such as Chris Wyatt, Timmy McGann and Eoghan Hickey.
ULSTER squad: (Backs) Bryn Cunningham; Mark Bartholomeusz; Tommy Bowe; Paul Steinmetz; Paddy Wallace; Andrew Trimble; Andrew Maxwell; Kevin Maggs; David Humphreys; Isaac Boss; Kieran Campbell. (Forwards) Justin Fitzpatrick; Bryan Young; Declan Fitzpatrick; Rory Best; Paul Shields; Justin Harrison, Matt McCullough, Tim Barker; Stephen Ferris, Neil Best; Kieron Dawson, Neil McMillan, Roger Wilson.
