This weekend heralds the first derby offerings of the Guinness PRO14 season, with all four Irish sides going head to head in a mouth-watering Round 6. So far, their starts to the new campaign have been peerless: the four outfits occupy the top two spots in both Conference A and B and have lost just three games between them out of a sum total 20, but this weekend something has to give. Connacht and Leinster get us underway on Friday night, before Ulster head to Thomond Park on Saturday for the late afternoon kick off, where two of the competition’s in-form scrum-halves will go head-to-head. Two sides blessed with options in the nine jersey, Nick McCarthy and John Cooney have both starred for Munster and Ulster respectively so far, but after standout displays last time out, Mathewson and Shanahan would feel aggrieved to miss out on a starting berth in Limerick.
