Connacht look set to unleash their Lions on the Bulls in Galway this Friday, with Bundee Aki, Finlay Bealham and Mack Hansen all available to make their first appearances of the season.
The trio have sat out the opening two games of the season, but look set to start their campaign in what's shaping up to be a crucial game against the Bulls in Galway.
The province made a bright start to life under Stuart Lancaster in the United Rugby Championship with a bonus-point win against Benetton in round one, but after the postponement of the meeting with the Scarlets they looked rusty in Saturday's 14-8 defeat to Cardiff in Wales.
"Obviously it wasn't ideal not having the game the week before," scrum coach Cullie Tucker said.
"I think you probably saw that in our performance. When you look at it, sometimes one or two areas of your game might not function, but other parts would hold up.
"Bar defensively, where I thought we were quite good, I felt parts of our game let us down. We didn't play to space well, our kicking game, our breakdown, we lost a couple of lineouts, which has traditionally been very, very strong.
"We lost the aerial battle for a good period of the game. So it was kind of across a lot of different sections of the game that we weren't up to par, you know."
Having wasted multiple chances to take the lead in the second half, Connacht allowed Cardiff close the game out with a Tom Bowen intercept try five minutes from time.
And although the province lost a game they arguably should have won, Tucker is taking a positive from how they kept fighting to secure a losing bonus point with David O’Connor’s try in the final minute.
"What I would say is I think we showed a lot of character. To concede the late try and come back down and get a bonus point out of it.
"And as I said, I thought we defended quite well for the majority of the game, which that's probably something that hasn't been a strength of ours over the last while.
"So that was very pleasing, but too much of our game didn't work out. Didn't function well enough," added Tucker, who was recently named head coach for Ireland A's game against Spain next month.
That defeat to Cardiff will be much more palatable if the province can rebound against the touring Bulls on Friday night at Dexcom Stadium.
The South Africans have had a mixed start under new head coach Johan Ackermann, winning two of their first their games, although both of those wins have come at home.
Last year’s finalists have conceded an average of 29 points per game in the opening three rounds, and offered very little outside of a dominant scrum in last week’s 28-7 defeat to Ulster in Belfast.
The Bulls can boast several Springboks in their squad, including Handre Pollard, Canan Moodie and Wilco Louw, but Tucker says Connacht won’t be daunted by the most powerful pack in the league.
"They have a lot of strengths, as we know, a lot of international quality. They've got game-breakers in the backfield and out wide. They've got a lot of power up front.
"They play a very physical, aggressive band of rugby. But we've shown through pre-season, we've had some good tests against Sale. We had a very physical game against Benetton.
"So it's about going back to how we want to play the game as well and playing to our strengths, playing to space.
"We've plenty of energy and plenty of physicality in our pack. We've plenty of pace in our back line as well.
"It's about imposing our game on them, understanding their strengths and weaknesses, of which there are considerable ones. But we've got to go out and impose our game on them. That's the biggest thing."
