Flanker Mike McComish is hoping to banish the memory of Treviso’s last visit to Ravenhill when they stunned Ulster.
The Irish Province were under strength due to the World Cup but the Italians came away from Belfast with a 23-12 win and McComish started in the back row with Chris Henry and Pedrie Wannenburg.
“They got a 15 point lead and we came back at them and I think we were massively more affected that time than they were with the World Cup on,” said McComish
“It’s just part and parcel of the game, guys are away with national squads or have injuries and I’m sure it’s pretty much the same for them.”
“We’ve just got to make sure we look after ourselves this week and get our prep right and turn up knowing it’s going to be a tough physical battle and put them to bed in the first 20 in terms of physicality and then hopefully towards the back end of the game we’ll start to pick up a few points.”
“Treviso arrive at Ravenhill on the back of a bonus point victory against Munster and McComish was shocked by that result.
“I’m not massively surprised by it, they’re a good team and have a great set-up, massive squad, big budget and I’m not surprised by anyone going over there and losing.”
“It’s just important we get ourselves focused for this week and right for Trevsio on Friday night.”
“They are a typical continental team, a big set-piece, very lineout orientated and very direct and we’ve got to match that in terms of physicality and in terms of bringing more urgency to our performance, I would like to think we’ve enough to get the win. “
McComish was disappointed with the result in Glasgow last week but felt Ulster could have got something out of the game.
“Having watched back the game I don’t think its panic stations, we did our review on Monday and there were a few lapses.”
“They took their opportunities and one was a charge-down and one where the ball scooted out of the scrum and a couple of other small defensive errors.”
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“Obviously the charge-down and the ball scooting out the back of the scrum are easy fixes and a couple of fixes in defence and I think if we’d taken our opportunities it would probably have been a different result, we certainly ended the game stronger.”
Ulster were gifted a bonus point when Glasgow’s Peter Horne missed a simple conversion.
“You were standing there and obviously with the kick being so close to the posts I was standing there underneath them thinking ‘Right that’s going over, next job’ and then it didn’t and it was nice for us to pick up something from the game.”
McComish is determined to prove Ulster’s critics wrong with a big performance aginst Treviso.
“You don’t lead a competition for seven months and suddenly you’re hearing from different quarters that Ulster are blah, blah, blah. You don’t turn into a different team overnight and we’ve obviously got the injuries but we’ve enough in this squad to back ourselves. “
“If we just show a bit more urgency and match them physicality wise I’d be confident we’d pick up a result.”
The flanker believes Ulster must take their chances.
“I think over the last couple of weeks we’ve created a lot of opportunities and for whatever reasons we haven’t taken those so we’ve just got to be clinical on Friday as well.”
“We’ve got to get that clinical mentality and certainly towards the end of the season you need that.”
“The bigger and better teams you play the fewer opportunities you get which obviously when you do get them you’ve got to take them.”
Ulster managed to win both games during the autumn internationals but have lost two out of three games during the Six Nations.
“I suppose we won the game in November albeit they were very close. The two games in Italy we just about came out the right side with a result but the Ospreys game obviously we didn’t.”
“Yet again Glasgow we could have come out of it on the right side and I suppose we were maybe getting that rub of the green in November.”
“But all sides go through troughs in a season and they don’t win every game, ever game now is a cup final and we’ve got to have that mentality as every game is massively important in terms of getting stuff at the back end of the season.”
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