THERE HAVE BEEN many benefits of the South African franchises joining the URC and Connacht prop Finlay Bealham believes one of them is the opportunity it gives them to pit themselves against Springboks on a regular basis.
“The South Africans, they love their scrummaging. Down there it is the bread and butter for them,” said the 32-year-old who has been capped 30 times since moving from Australia to come through the Connacht academy.He is set to come up against a Stormers side laden with Springboks when Connacht take on the champions at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday in the semi-finals of the URC.
“We respect them a lot in the scrum but we are going to do everything we can to make it a weapon for us. “There hasn’t been a whole lot of chat about that to be honest. We’re a really focused group and we know the challenge ahead of us this Saturday. Listen, 2016 is a bloody long time ago now. We’ve a really great bunch of coaches and players here now and they know what a big game this will be at the weekend.