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Donal Lenihan's Guinness Pro14 quarter-final predictions

The retiring Rory Best will hope for a win in his final game at Ravenhill
The retiring Rory Best will hope for a win in his final game at Ravenhill

Ulster v Connacht is the game of the weekend, a local derby, two Irish sides, who are both desperate to make a semi-final.

Connacht have actually beaten Ulster twice already this year, and more importantly they won in Belfast for the first time since 1960.

So repeating that twice in the same season would be incredible.

It's a huge day for Ulster. Rory Best has been a great servant for them and Irish rugby. It's the last time he's going to appear in the Kingspan so there's a huge amount of emotion around that game.

I think it's important that Ulster separate that because of the quality that Connacht have. 

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Looking at their backline alone, Tom Farrell and Bundee Aki have been brilliant in the centre this year, Jack Carty is now pushing Joey Carbery for the back-up out-half posititon for the World Cup.

They have a choice to make at scrum-half between Caolin Blade and Kieran Marmion.

I think this game will be a cracker. Home advantage probably gives Ulster that little bit of an edge, especially with the physicality they have up front with Iain Henderson and Marcell Coetzee.

But it's going to be a tight affair.

Munster won 37-28 in Treviso last month

Munster have won 16 of the 21 league games to date, Benetton are 11 out of 21.

It's a game that Munster didn't really want to be involved in. They wanted to top their conference and go straight to a home semi-final. As a consequence, interest in the game crowd-wise hasn't been as big as you'd normally get.

It's their seventh game on the trot so they've been playing a lot of rugby over the past number of weeks. But they want that semi-final against Leinster in two weeks' time so it will be interesting to see whether Keith Earls and Carbery are back in the side.

It's a game they have to win. They're desperately searching for silverware and the chance of taking on Leinster the week after the Champions Cup final is a massive carrot for them.

Follow Munster v Benetton (3pm) and Ulster v Connacht (5.35pm) with our live blog on RTÉ.ie and the RTÉ News Now App or listen to live coverage on RTÉ Radio 1's Saturday Sport

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