Angus Curtis has been marked out by boss Dan McFarland as one "for the future" but the 20-year-old is already making a big impact for Ulster.
The centre, who can also play out-half, will make his fifth senior appearance for the province against Munster in tomorrow's Guinness Pro14 tie at Thomond Park.
The versatile back was a standout performer for Ireland in the last Six Nations Under-20 tournament.
"Angus has gone well," said new head coach McFarland. "He has the capacity to play at ten, he can play at twelve as well, he’s an exciting young player.
"He’s very brave, he has excellent ball skills. So yeah, he’s somebody to look to for the future."
The English man has gotten off to a fine start with his new side. They are unbeaten after four games, including two wins and a draw earned with late kicks.
He said he expects a better effort from Munster, who lost heavily to Cardiff away last week.
"I expect to see a different Munster than we saw in Cardiff," said McFarland.
"I know from speaking with Johann [van Graan] and Peter [O'Mahony] that they were very disappointed. That’s not to denigrate Cardiff’s performance, it was an excellent performance by them, but obviously Munster are going to be disappointed with that.
"We’ll prepare as if we’re going to see the best Munster team we know.
"That’s the only way to go about it, and that is a significant challenge down there. It’s one that the Ulster team rose to last year, coming away with a draw, so we’ll look forward to that [challenge].
"I’ve said to the players that over the last six or seven weeks that I’ve been here, the foundational behaviours that we want to build on are definitely there, and we’ll continue to foster them."In terms of the rugby side of things that’s a longer term thing.
"We’ve a relatively young coaching team, an inexperienced head coach, the systems we want to put in place are going to take time.
"I think we’ve made a good start with that."Again, we’re not tripping over ourselves, we understand that’s a long build. As long as we keep making progress that’s the main thing."
