Ulster coach Mark Anscombe is not fearing a trip to London to face Saracens in the Heineken Cup quarter final.
Mark McCall’s side finished on the same number of points as Ulster but went above them in the seedings for the last eight on tries scored.
“We have to be confident and the fact is we haven’t been beaten out of Ireland this year which is something we can be proud of. We have travelled well and I read over the weekend that Saracens are comfort away from home as well, they have a quality team with a lot of international players and they are a hard team to beat,” said Anscombe.
“We had talked about it and that was a goal we had set ourselves. We knew going to Castres what was in from of us and with the other games we knew it was going to be a tough ask to get it.
“We got through, we won our pool so there are more positives than negatives. It’s the first time we topped our pool, first time we have won in France so maybe we’ll leave a home quarter as a first for next year.
“The fact was we were in a tough competition and you just have to look at the standard and where all those teams are in their leagues.
“You could argue we had the toughest pool, Northampton are fifth in England they were beat by Glasgow who are second in the Pro12.
“It was a tough pool and we came out of it with five wins so it isn’t all too bad. We can get over critical at times but five out of six doesn’t happen to often, we are one of eight still in the competition and there are 16 teams not enjoying the thoughts of what a quarter final brings to them.
“We have a lot of time between now and the quarters – hopefully that allows time to heal and like all teams when you come to the business end of the season you hope you have a full contingent of the squad to select from.
“We have other things to do now and we won’t beat ourselves up over the challenge of Saracens because it’s two and half months away. It will be a good battle and it won’t be too far for our supporters to go.”
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