Ulster will be boosted for their return to URC action this weekend by the availability of Ireland squad members Iain Henderson, Jacob Stockdale, Nick Timoney and Tom Stewart for Sunday’s clash with the Ospreys in Swansea.
All four have been released back to the northern province by Andy Farrell with only Stuart McCloskey, who played the full game in Ireland’s resounding win over Italy last Sunday and Tom O’Toole, who came off the bench, being stood down from any further grafting this weekend.
Henderson might have also been rested, after putting in a 20-minute shift off the Irish bench, but Dan McFarland is able to deploy his skipper with Ulster missing injured frontline locks Alan O’Connor and Kieran Treadwell for their trip to Wales.
Stockdale, Timoney and Stewart have not featured in the match day squads over the course of the first two rounds of Six Nations action and so were always likely to be turning out for Ulster. It is the province’s first game since last month’s dismal European outing at Harlequins, a defeat which has consigned McFarland’s men to the last 16 of the Challenge Cup and with it a trip to Montpelier in April.
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“Everyone wants to keep going back to the Harlequins performance because it was so disappointing,” said Ulster assistant coach Dan Soper, “and we were so disappointed with it, but we have genuinely parked it and moved on.
“The break [in games] did come at a good time,” he insisted, “and allowed everyone to take a step back, re-evaluate and take a deep dive into what’s going well and what’s not and how we’re going to attack the second part [of the season].
“That’s exactly what we’ve done, and we feel really confident about parts of our game that are going well and the areas we know we need to get going after.”
Soper continued: “We’re in a good position in the league, we could be better and we’ll certainly be going after the second half of the season to climb the league and [hopefully] get into that home play-off position.
“That’s our target. There was obvious disappointment with our performances in Europe, but we’ve got to live with that and move on,” he added.
Though Ulster are coming off deeply damaging back-to-back defeats in Europe – losing at home to Toulouse and at Quins – they have won on both previous occasions they have played in URC when just about getting past Leinster and Connacht – both winning margins having been by just a solitary point – over the festive period.
Ulster are currently fifth in the URC table but only four points separate them from Munster in 11th place while Sunday’s opponents, Ospreys, are three behind the northern province in eighth and have won their last four games in all competitions.
“You just have to look at the league table and every game is absolutely crucial now, it’s so tight from second to 11th,” stated Soper.
“Performing every week is going to be crucial through this back end [of the season].”
In addition to the injured O’Connor and Treadwell, Ulster will also be without the sidelined Rob Herring as well as Stewart Moore, Ben Moxham and Callum Reid.
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