set properties of bean managed by dataTable tag

[Jan Bols]

I have a jsf-page containing the following:
<f:view>
        <h:dataTable var="contact" value="#{allContacts.contactList}">        
            <h:outputText value="#{contact.firstname}" />
        </h:dataTable>
</f:view>
The allContacts bean is a managed bean and is specified in the web.xml  
file:
<faces-config>
	<managed-bean>
		<managed-bean-name>allContacts</managed-bean-name>
		<managed-bean-class>MyContacts</managed-bean-class>
		<managed-bean-scope>session</managed-bean-scope>
	</managed-bean>
</faces-config>

The allContacts bean contains a list contactList containing contact-beans.  
The contact bean contains a property called myConnection that holds the  
connection to the database.

I want to set that connection property from within the jsf-page or the  
web.xml file but how do I do that? In jstl this can be done with <c:set>  
or in jsp with <jsp:setProperty> but how do I do this in jsf?

Thanks
Jan