With three wins from their four games played, including an impressive turning over of the Sharks in Durban, Ulster are plotting hard to continue their upward curve as they prepare to meet Benetton in Belfast on Friday.
Having tasted defeat for the first time this season in their previous outing at the Lions, there is a marked determination to hit back hard and particularly so ahead of kick-starting the Challenge Cup campaign at home to Racing 92 next week.
Though the loss of Stuart McCloskey when on Ireland duty is a blow, Ulster head coach Richie Murphy does have the powerful centre’s fellow national squad members Nick Timoney, Iain Henderson and Jacob Stockdale all available and may even get Juarno Augustus (arm) and Cormac Izuchukwu (foot) back in harness again against the Italians. Utility back Stewart Moore has been brought back from his brief loan spell at Newcastle due to the absences of McCloskey and Michael Lowry.
Saturday Shambles wraps up Ireland's November window
New signing Angus Bell, who arrived in Belfast earlier this week after being on duty with Australia, will sit this one out and hopefully be available for the Racing clash.
RM Block
Though disappointed with the defeat in Johannesburg back on October 25th – Ulster did take a try bonus point to make it six points from their trip to South Africa – Murphy is upbeat for what could now be achieved over the course of the 10-game block now facing the northern province.
“We’ve had a good few weeks, so the guys got 10 days off and then came back in. We had obviously 10 guys go away with the Ireland A team (against Spain), which took a week out of that and we had four with the national senior team, but the other guys that were left here worked really hard.
“The focus areas that we took from the first four weeks (of games), we’ve concentrated really hard on trying to improve and hopefully we’ll see the benefits from that on Friday,” Murphy added.
“They have been much better in relation to being on the same page,” he stated of Ulster’s notable achievements from the first block of games.
“I think that’s improved massively, I think both attack and defence. We look harder to score against and we’re scoring plenty of tries and we’re looking after the ball well.
“Those areas have been really positive. It’s now balancing that up and improving in and around our set-piece and a lot of work has gone into that as well.”
