The towering Kiwi second row tweaked a hamstring which means veteran Vernon Cooper moves up to the starting squad. French speedster Yannick N’Gog moves on to the bench after spending a trial period with the region this week.
The Scarlets won two of their three festive Welsh derbies and will be looking to close the gap on those above them when they tackle Connacht at the Galway.
Despite Connacht’s lowly league position, Scarlets Head coach Nigel Davies is expecting a torrid evening ahead.
“Connacht have put in some strong performances of late and are very difficult to play against,” he said. “We’ve lost over there in the past so Friday has the makings of a very difficult game. However, the fact that we’re fighting for this league focuses the mind a little bit which isn’t a bad thing.
“Connacht’s a tough place to go; it’s a small field, normally windy and they play a basic game very well. They’ll be physical as ever and they’ll kick for territory so we’ll have to manage that particularly well.
“We’ve got to be clinical in our approach and we’ve got to have a tough mentality.”
Davies’s squad is still light behind the scrum due to long-term injury absentees such as Gavin Evans, Rob Higgitt, Dafydd James and Daniel Evans. In addition, a bug has meant Wales outside-half Stephen Jones starts on the bench, and Wales wing Mark Jones is out due to an appendix operation earlier this week.
Scarlets: 15 Morgan Stoddart, 14 Darren Daniel, 13 Regan King, 12 Jon Davies, 11 Gareth Morris, 10 Rhys Priestland, 9 Martin Roberts; 1 Phil John, 2 Matthew Rees, 3 Deacon Manu, 4 Dominic Day, 5 Simon Maling, 6 Simon Easterby (c), 7 Johnathan Edwards, 8 David Lyons; Reps – 16 Iestyn Thomas, 17 Ken Owens, 18 Lou Reed, 19 Vernon Cooper, 20 Gavin Cattle, 21 Dafydd Jones, 22 Stephen Jones.
Connacht: G Duffy; F Carr; N Ta’auso, K Matthews, L Bibo; I Keatley, F Murphy; B Wilkinson, S Cronin, R Morris; M McCarthy, A Farley; J Muldoon (C), R Ofisa, C Rigney.
Replacements: A Flavin, R Loughney, M Swift, A Browne, K Campbell, A Dunne, M Deane.
