By JOHN FALLON

CONNACHT are confident Mack Hansen will follow in Bundee Aki’s footsteps and extend his contract with the province.

Hansen is out of contract with Connacht next summer and while nothing has been announced so far in the wave of new Irish contracts, Head Coach Pete Wilkins is optimistic that the Canberra native will commit his future in Galway.

“Yes. Still looks confident,” said Wilkins. “That  a work in progress at this stage, but I know they’re in negotiations at the moment. So, yeah, nothing to report, but we’re confident that things are progressing as they should.”

Connacht moved quickly to extend Hansen’s initial contract when he became an immediate hit after signing for two years at the outset of the 2021-22 season.

The 26-year old made his Irish debut against Wales six months after his Connacht debut and was only halfway through his contract by the end of that season when he signed a three-year extension.

Meanwhile, Connacht will again try to become the first side to inflict defeat on Leinster this season when they take on Leo Cullen’s men at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday (5.30pm).

Leinster beat them 33-12 at Dexcom Stadium in Galway in October and Wilkins acknowledged they would need a lot of things to go right if they are to triumph on Saturday.

“There’s a few bits of the jigsaw that need to fall into place for us rugby wise. I think you don’t beat Leinster, in any competition on any day unless every bit of your rugby operation is functioning to a really high level. It doesn’t mean it has to be perfect, because then if you worry about perfection too much, sometimes you don’t get the intensity that’s required.

“So all the bits of our game will have to function well. I know that goes without saying. I think for us, mindset wise, we’re at our best when we’re there to fire some shots, when we’re not too bogged down by consequence, by score lines, by timelines, but back ourselves.”

Wilkins said that a bright start was instrumental to their hopes as they bid to stop Leinster making it ten wins on the spin this season.

“You’ve seen them blow teams away in the first 20 minutes of games this season. They look to get a lot of their work done early. So that Q1 will be monumental in terms of our chances in the game,” he added.

Connacht have lost their last ten encounters with Leinster but did defeat them in January 2021 when they came away from the RDS with a 35-24 win.

“We will take confidence from that,” added Wilkins. “And I think also as disappointing as the result was at Dexcom here going back a few weeks ago, we showed that when our attack clicked, we could get the line breaks and we could get the entries to the 22 that you need to to score points.

“Their defence is functioning so well, keeping teams to 12 or 13 points a game. So, for us, we have to go in there with the intent to score. And, last time out, we showed that we could cause some problems, but we just weren’t efficient in putting those opportunities away.

“So, the defence will have a big say in it in terms of seeing what kind of score line we actually have to chase. But, yeah, look, we’ll always go into these games with a lot of self-belief, but it’s about taking those opportunities when they come.”

Pictured: Connacht and Ireland winger Mack Hansen who is currently in contract extension talks with the IRFU.