Ulster coach Dan McFarland labels Kingspan Breffni friendly as "a great opportunity"

​ULSTER head coach Dan McFarland has described tomorrow’s historic pre-season friendly game against Glasgow Warriors as a “great opportunity” for fans and players alike.

When the Ulstermen set foot onto the field at Kingspan Breffini, it will be the first time that Ulster have ever played a game at a GAA ground.

McFarland said: “I think it’s great. We’re going to a different venue in Ulster and there are a lot of people who support us who travel a long way.

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“There are people from Cavan who come and support us, in fact, I was playing tennis with a guy from Cavan and it was before it was announced and I told him and he was so excited that he and his family would be able to go to the game.

“I think it is a brilliant opportunity for them, and for us, it’s a new experience, the players are pumped for it.”

The game is the last pre-season fixture for Ulster before their United Rugby Championship opener against Italian side Zebre Parma.

McFarland himself is no stranger to the GAA environment. During his stint as a player and later assistant coach for Connacht, he fully embraced the rich GAA culture of western Ireland.

“My son, Thomas, did everything, he was at Maree National School and he was part of the Oranmore-Maree GAA club.” said the former tight-head prop.

“Maree would be the centre for hurling and Oranmore would be more football but Thomas did a bit of both.

“He enjoyed the football, if you live in the west of Ireland, even if you wanted to avoid it you can’t.”

During his stint with Ulster, McFarland has coached John Muldoon, who is from Portumna, a massive hurling town and home to Galway legend Joe Canning.

Portumna won four All-Ireland Club hurling titles in the time that McFarland coached the province.

McFarland said: “John’s brother Ivan would have played a lot of hurling and many of the U20s team that I coached would have been big hurlers, much to my annoyance at the time as it meant they wouldn’t turn up for training.

“It runs through everything that goes on in the west of Ireland.”

There is another Celtic clash occurring some 729 miles away from Cavan on Saturday as Ireland take on Scotland, a team McFarland knows from his involvement between 2017 and 2018.

He said: “Going into the Scotland game, there’s been a lot of talk about Ireland playing in a quarter-final but no-one in the Ireland camp will be talking about that.

“They’ll be focused on a massive test match against Scotland, who showed what they were capable of against Romania.

“They’re obviously a quality side but Ireland aren’t number one in the world for nothing.”

Last year, Ulster finished second in the URC league table and dominated teams with their forward-heavy style of play, a style that McFarland wants to expand on for the upcoming season.

“We needed to introduce a way of managing the middle of the pitch in particular,” said McFarland who has coached Ulster for five seasons.

“The fall-out of the work we did to execute that was that we got really good at it.

“Combined with the quality of our kicking from nine, the quality of our ball-chasing, and the development of our maul, we realised we can punish teams with this.

“We can take what we did during the last two seasons and say “there’s weaponry there” and make sure we remind ourselves what our DNA is and our ability to counter-attack, move the ball, see space and take it and make the pitch big for our attacking opportunities.”