Stuart McCloskey and Will Addison spearhead midfield battle for Ulster ahead of crunch URC clash against Leinster

The midfield battle could be key to deciding the result with the Ulster centre pairing up against Leinster’s former All Black Charlie Ngatai and Ireland international Jimmy O’Brien.

McCloskey and Addison have been thrown together after James Hume suffered a serious injury that will see him sidelined for a prolonged period.

Despite the announcement earlier in the week that Addison will depart Kingspan Stadium at the end of the season, McCloskey is enjoying his time in the centre with the former Sale Shark.

“Love it, obviously miss Jumer (James Hume) and the injury is terrible for him, and he’s been playing very well this year, but I think me and Will have always played well when he’s played 13 with me,” McCloskey said.

“He’s such a tough guy, he lashes at everybody and he’s demanding which is good and he always wants the ball in his hands – he’s not too dissimilar to James in a way.

“He’s been very good and brilliant in the last few games, and I think going forward he probably sees himself as a 13 now more than a 15.

“Jumer on his day is completely unplayable, Will is slightly different than that – he thinks tactically, he talks you through things, he’s been more the speaker between us two and he’d be the one making the calls and that’s quite nice in a way when that pressure is off me to do that.”

Ulster are looking to complete a league double over Leinster having won earlier in the year at the RDS.

McCloskey added: “Not too many teams have the double over them over the last few years, so we’ll definitely take learnings from that game earlier in the season – what went well for us that day, what didn’t go well – so we’ll try to do that exact thing again and squeeze out a narrow victory hopefully.

“It would be great to get a performance but more importantly get a win and make sure we get in that top eight and if we win we’ll probably end up in sixth and see who we play from there.

“I think the top four has probably got away from us now so it’s just getting that one win here in front of our home crowd rather than have to go down to Munster in a couple of weeks to try and get a result there.

“We’ve put ourselves in a pretty good spot now, we’ll see if we can deliver at home which thankfully over the years, we’ve done pretty well a lot of the time so touch wood we’ll do it again.

“Realistically we’re just trying to get to the play-offs at the minute, secure top eight and see how we go from there.”

Ireland prop Tom O’Toole returns to the Ulster starting line up with Scott Wilson on the bench.

Leinster included Ireland duo Hugo Keenan and James Ryan as both try to prove their fitness ahead of next week’s European Champions Cup final.

Ulster: (15-9) Ethan McIlroy, Mike Lowry, Will Addison, Stuart McCloskey, Jacob Stockdale, Billy Burns, John Cooney; (1-8) Eric O’Sullivan, Rob Herring, Tom O’Toole, Kieran Treadwell, Alan O’Connor (C), Cormac Izuchukwu, David McCann, Nick Timoney.

Replacements: Tom Stewart, Andy Warwick, Scott Wilson, Harry Sheridan, Matty Rea, Nathan Doak, Stewart Moore, Jude Postlethwaite.