As first rounds go, Saturday’s URC opener bringing Ulster and Connacht together at Ravenhill certainly looks to be no soft landing for Dan McFarland’s squad. It seems destined to be a tasty enough interpro, especially so as the western province have managed to turn UIster over several times over the last four years which includes Connacht winning twice in Belfast and, of course, hammering the northern province last October in the Aviva Stadium.
With Ulster’s final pre-season hit-out in Glasgow having been cancelled last weekend due to Queen Elizabeth’s death, there is definitely some concern around Ravenhill that the home side have just had the one friendly, a fairly facile home victory over Exeter.
“It’s an interesting one having an interpro first up but it’s also very exciting for the players,” said McFarland. “They (the players) are all looking forward to playing full stop, but the interpro adds something a little bit extra.
“And from my point of view it’s always a big one for me,” he added, regarding taking on Connacht where he was previously a player and assistant coach.
And in terms of Ulster’s recent record against Andy Friend’s squad, which has seen the northern province lose five from their last nine meetings, McFarland stated: “We’re fully aware of that (the recent record) and that’s a credit to the way they play against us. On a couple of those occasions we haven’t played as well as we could have done, but we’ve also had some big wins against them. We’ve been pretty well matched in our matches, and I expect it will be the same on Saturday.”
While admitting that not getting to fulfil the Glasgow pre-season game was “right and proper” regarding the circumstances which led to its cancellation, the Ulster head coach also admitted that it was far from ideal in terms of preparation for Saturday’s opener with Connacht.
“It was a real shame we didn’t get to play against Glasgow on Friday night, but the circumstances are what they are,” he said. “For guys who wanted to put their hand up, who might not have had as much opportunity, well they haven’t (had that) because of the fact that the game didn’t go ahead. That will definitely have had a bearing on selection as we go into the latter end of this week. But we just move on and get on with it. When things out of our control change things we’re able to adapt.”
Selection wise, Ulster’s Ireland internationals involved in last summer’s New Zealand tour will sit this one out – it is expected they will be back in round two – while there is a doubt surrounding John Cooney’s fitness to tog out against his former team.
