ULSTER will go up against Munster tomorrow night hoping that it’s a case of third time lucky against their inter-provincial rivals.
After suffering an 18-13 defeat in Limerick last January, Ulster then fell to a seven-point loss just five weeks ago in Belfast.
A downturn in form then followed and at one point it was looking like Ulster’s play-off hopes were about to come off the rails altogether.
But Ulster then quickly regrouped and recorded wins over Edinburgh and the Cell C Sharks to hand themselves home advantage for the quarter-finals, and as Stuart McCloskey explains, home advantage is something that he and his teammates are hoping to make full use of.
“It makes a big difference playing at home. We’ve lost twice this year at home, one was to Munster to be fair, but it is an advantage and hopefully we’ll get a big crowd here on Friday night,” said McCloskey.
“The game here was a tough one after that loss to Toulouse the week before, so maybe, you could understand being a bit deflated after that.
“But we’ve played well the last couple of weeks and bounce into it on a run of good form.”
After only watching that clash between the sides back last week, McCloskey is hoping that Ulster can go about their business differently this week as they seek to make the semi-finals of the inaugural URC.
“I watched it back at the end of last week and we did some stuff pretty badly and they played some nice stuff.
“I think we probably gave them a couple of easy tries and let them get ahead of us and we struggled to get back into the game from there.
“We’ll do things differently and they’ll obviously be coming back strong after a disappointing defeat against Leinster a couple of weeks ago now and getting knocked out of Europe by Toulouse, it’s been a tough one for them.
“So, I’m sure they bounce back into this with confidence and with a few guys coming back into their team.”
Much of Ulster’s recent success has been built upon McCloskey’s midfield partnership with James Hume. With Luke Marshall missing a lot of rugby during that 18 months Hume has grown into one of the games new stars and last year earned his first Ireland cap. It’s been no wonder that the paring has been mentioned as one of Europe’s best.
On striking up a partnership that is both feared and respected in equal numbers McCloskey said the understanding between the two didn’t happen overnight an is just down to time being spent together on the training field.
“Time together. Like time together training – time together playing obviously helps. You get a feel for each other’s styles.
“I think we do blend well together as a centre partnership – just the things we do.
“But obviously he’s a great player. At times I would say that he is one of the best thirteens in the world and he’s been playing great stuff.”
