Ulster's Challenge Cup final blueprint has just received its biggest possible boost. Robert Baloucoune, the breakout Ireland wing who has not played a competitive game since the Six Nations, has been named in the matchday 23 for Friday's clash with Montpellier in Bilbao — and Eggchasers Rugby believes the timing could not be better.
The Ulster team announcement underlines what is at stake. The Challenge Cup final is the first piece of European silverware of the season and offers a route into next year's Champions Cup, a key qualification incentive after a deflating campaign in the URC. With first-choice wing options thinned by injury, Baloucoune returns to his customary right-wing slot with the small matter of 11 tries in 12 starts already on his season ledger.
The Eggchasers analyst described him as 'a finely tuned sports car' — devastating when running, but easily sidelined by the smallest issue. He has been in the rugby equivalent of the garage since February. His form when fit, however, has been arguably the standout in Ulster colours all season, and the channel suggested he is now squarely on Andy Farrell's radar for Ireland's Nations Championship campaign in July.
Around him, James Hume and Jude Postlethwaite form a midfield Eggchasers sees as a long-term Ireland audition opportunity. Both, the show argued, should already be in the green-jersey conversation but now have an 80-minute stage to prove it. Cormac Izuchukwu and Dave McCann anchor a back row balanced for breakdown jackal and lineout work, with the absence of suspended captain Iain Henderson the one obvious blow.
Montpellier, by contrast, arrive at the Estadio San Mamés in classic French dual-priority mode. Sitting second in the Top 14 with two regular-season rounds remaining, and a winner-take-second-place shootout against third-placed Pau lined up next weekend, the French club has rotated heavily through this competition. Their first-choice props and hooker Christian Tolifua — the Top 14's leading try-scoring hooker — are being held back. Eggchasers sees that decision as a potential gift to Ulster's scrum, with the back-up Montpellier front row described as 'a little bit on the weak side'.
Where Montpellier do not compromise, however, is in their captain. Billy Vunipola, since his move to France, has carved out one of the season's most physically dominant campaigns. He sits among the Top 14's leaders for carries and post-contact metres. His head-on collision with Ulster's Juarno Augustus, Eggchasers predicts, will be 'atomic' — two ball-carrying wrecking balls in direct combat.
Australian fullback Tom Banks, the Top 14's leading carrying metre-maker, gives Montpellier a counter-attacking spine. Florian Verhaeghe has been ranked among the best forwards in the competition by the show's analysis, while scrum-half Alex Lozowski runs a tight game.
The stylistic clash framed by Eggchasers is clear: Ulster, fourth-lowest in turnovers conceded in the Challenge Cup, want a structured low-error final and have been deadly on the break; Montpellier sit near the top of the competition for dominant carries and post-contact metres and play a slow-slow-fast pattern that punishes loose kicks. With Ulster among the lowest kicking sides in the tournament, a finals-day shift in their territorial approach was flagged as a potential X-factor — go too quickly to the run game, and Montpellier's defence could put them in trouble.
The host's prediction: Ulster by four, 27–23. 'Their qualification for Champions Cup next year is on the line,' the analyst noted. 'All their eggs are in this 80-minute basket.'
