Booth's 'horrific' unavailable Ospreys list at Ulster

Toby Booth will leave Ospreys at the end of the 2024-25 season to be replaced by Mark Jones

United Rugby Championship: Ulster v Ospreys

Venue: Kingspan Stadium, Belfast Date: Friday, 18 October Kick-off: 19:35 BST

Coverage: Live audio and text commentary on the BBC Sport website and app. Highlights BBC Sport website and app.

Ospreys head coach Toby Booth has outlined his "horrific" unavailability list as he prepares to send a depleted squad to face Ulster in the United Rugby Championship (URC) on Friday night.

Booth has 40% of his squad unavailable for the away fixture in Belfast with the usual absentee figure around 22%.

Most of the players are injured with a couple of Wales internationals having their workload managed as Ospreys face a second game in six days.

The players missing include Rhys Henry, Dewi Lake, Tom Botha, Huw Sutton, Rhys Davies, Adam Beard, James Fender, James Ratti, Will Griffiths, Harri Deaves, Tristan Davies, Morgan Morse, Jac Morgan, Ryan Conbeer, Keiran Williams, Owen Watkin, Phil Cokanasiga and Iestyn Hopkins.

Booth is fielding players out of position in Belfast with hooker Lewis Lloyd named at flanker and returning fly-half Owen Williams starting at inside centre.

Six lock options are absent with second rows Lewis Jones and Will Greatbanks making first Ospreys starts.

Rhys Thomas and Dan Gemine, who has just turned 19, are named on the bench for potential debuts as they step up from the Super Rygbi Cymru (SRC) from Aberavon and Swansea respectively.

Number eight Morgan Morris will captain the side, Wales scrum-half Kieran Hardy makes his first start following his summer move from Scarlets.

Wing Keelan Giles appears for the first time this season in a backline that includes South African duo Dan Kasende and Evardi Boshoff.

Budgets taking their toll

The squads of the four Welsh professional sides have been cut this season with budgets reducing to £4.5m.

The squeeze is being felt just four games into the campaign with Dragons and Cardiff bosses Dai Flanagan and Matt Sherratt also expressing concerns.

"I'm guessing here, we have roughly around 55%-60% players [fit] which is horrific," said Booth.

"It is not just in number, but in quality.

"So from that point of view it provides the opportunity for other people to put their hands up, but we'll do our best to find a way, like we always do and we won't be lacking in effort, that's for sure.

"With depleting wage caps and smaller squad numbers, it's always going to be difficult if you get injuries or unavailable players in the same place.

"We've got a lot of people [out] in similar positions which makes it challenging.

"You've got to try and balance it with enough quality and enough numbers and that's always a difficult thing.

"So you do your best, you need a high-functioning academy in order to fill the gaps.

"We're having to bring people in and that's not necessarily the right thing to do, but needs must and we will do our best to find the way we can."

Relying on smaller numbers

Booth says he has 36 senior professional players in his squad, while some opposition have more than 60 at their disposal.

"If you get injuries in the same position then you're going to struggle," said Booth.

"The other side of it is, if you've got smaller numbers, you put more load through the same people.

"So it not just injury and unavailability. You're putting lots more minutes into the same people because you have a reliance on them.

"That doesn't allow you to freshen people as much as you'd like."

Booth will have to use young players in certain games, but is wary about over-exposing them.

"Our job is to make them ready for the load," said Booth.

"I'm not going to put a player out there that I don't think is physically able to be out there.

"So you have a duty of care as a coach to make sure that's not happening.

"We use the Super Rygbi stuff and we have got youngsters playing out in that.

"That's the bridge into the URC teams, but sometimes those things get accelerated and that is not perfect.

"It's not a perfect world we are operating in, but you're always going to put the health and safety of the player first."

Ospreys have lost three of their four URC games this season with their only victory the 37-24 win against Stormers in Bridgend.

They have only beaten an Irish province away from home twice since 2016 and their most recent victory in Belfast was in February 2013.

Ulster have won two of their opening four games in this campaign, both at home against Glasgow and Connacht. Their two defeats came in South Africa against Lions and Bulls.

Ulster have won their last seven league games at Kingspan Stadium and lost just one of their last 11 encounters with Welsh regions - though that was a visit to Ospreys in February.

Ulster: Mike Lowry; Werner Kok, Ben Carson, Stuart McCloskey, Jacob Stockdale; Aidan Morgan, John Cooney; Eric O’Sullivan, James McCormick, Tom O’Toole, Alan O’Connor (capt), Harry Sheridan, Cormac Izuchukwu, Marcus Rea, David McCann.

Replacements: Tadgh McElroy, Callum Reid, Scott Wilson, Kieran Treadwell and Matty Rea, Nathan Doak, James Humphreys, Jude Postlethwaite.

Ospreys: Jack Walsh; Dan Kasende, Evardi Boshoff, Owen Williams, Keelan Giles; Dan Edwards, Kieran Hardy; Gareth Thomas, Sam Parry, Ben Warren, Will Greatbanks, Lewis Jones, Lewis Lloyd, Justin Tipuric, Morgan Morris (capt).

Replacements: Ethan Lewis, Garyn Phillips, Math Iowerth-Scott, Rhys Thomas, Dan Gemine, Reuben Morgan-Williams, Tom Florence, Max Nagy.

Referee: Andrea Piardi (FIR)

Assistant referees: Andrew Cole & Andrew Fogarty (IRFU)

TMO: Matteo Liperini (FIR)