skip to main content
United Rugby Championship logo

Ulster's Dave McCann expects different Leinster 'edge' for URC knockout clash

Dave McCann: 'We've got a really good buy-in now'
Dave McCann: 'We've got a really good buy-in now'

Ulster's Dave McCann acknowledges Leinster will bring a different "edge" when the sides meet in the quarter-finals of the BKT United Rugby Championship on Saturday.

Richie Murphy's team have already done the double over Leinster this season, winning 22-21 at the RDS in January and 23-21 in Ravenhill last month.

With Leo Cullen’s charges having lost another Champions Cup final, back row McCann expects to face a team desperate to prevent a third successive defeat to the visitors at the Aviva Stadium (5pm).

"You’ve got to take confidence that you know the process of how to beat them," said the 23-year-old, who scored a try in Ulster's 29-24 defeat to Munster on Saturday.

"They’ll obviously bring a bit more edge this weekend so it’s exciting.

"Hopefully we can impose our game plan on them."

Ulster beat Leinster 23-21 in May

Ulster finished the regular season with four wins in their final five matches and McCann added that the team has enjoyed playing under new head coach Murphy, who took over from Dan McFarland in March.

"We’ve got a really good buy-in now about how we want to go about our business and actually implementing that has become a bit easier with the training we’ve had over the past few weeks.

"Going away to South Africa, going away to France, that really put us on a certain level but we’ve backed that up over the past few weeks so it’s exciting."

Meanwhile, Ulster are sweating on the fitness of a number of players ahead of the game.

Ethan McIlroy (back) and Stuart McCloskey (groin) were both late withdrawals from the Munster game, while Kieran Treadwell (calf) (below) and Alan O'Connor (head injury) were replaced in the first half at Thomond Park.

Elsewhere, Leinster assistant coach Andrew Goodman says just because they are likely to field a first-choice team this time, there is no danger of complacency creeping in.

"We're playing against a team that’s beaten us twice this year and once within the last couple of weeks," said the New Zealander, who will join the Ireland coaching team this summer.

"There’s a massive rivalry between the Irish clubs and when you play each other it’s personal and it means something to everyone."

Asked about key decisions during the defeats to Ulster and Toulouse, Goodman felt it was execution rather than game plan that let them down.

"We talk about them situations as game-drivers and coaches group, we also analyse them afterwards," said the 41-year-old.

"You talk about the Toulouse game, yes, we went to the corner, [we] back that decision.

"It’s how can we execute better 'cos off the back of those there were massive chances that probably would have changed the outcome of the game, or could have had a big impact if we’d been able to execute some of those opportunities in the first 20 minutes."

Watch Munster v Ospreys (Friday, 7.35pm) in the URC on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on RTÉ Radio 1 Extra. Follow a live blog of Leinster v Ulster (Saturday 5pm) on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to updates on RTÉ Radio 1

Read Next