Rob Herring wants Ulster to keep rich vein of form going against Connacht

Seven wins in their last eight games has put Dan McFarland’s side in contention to challenge for the playoffs in both the Guinness PRO14 and Heineken Cup.

Ulster travel to the Sportsground looking to avenge Connacht’s 22-15 in Belfast and Herring is expecting a tough battle against Andy Friend’s side who narrowly lost at the RDS on Saturday.

“We have been boiling nicely over the last four weeks and we’ll take a lot of confidence down to Connacht, it is another big game for us an Interpro and we need the points to start making our way up the table,” said the Ireland hooker.

“That was a very disappointing game earlier in the season and there is an element of making things right but I think we have come a long way since then, we are playing a very ambitious brand of rugby and hopefully we can go down there and keep that up.”

“It wasn’t our greatest game and we know we are going to have to be better going down there and we have come a long way since then, we have to stick to the way we are playing and try and get the win.”

“We have had some tough battles there over the years, the elements can factor in quite a bit there is normally a strong wind blowing, it is a tough place to go especially in the Christmas derbies and there will be a good atmosphere.”

“We had some close victories at the start of the season where we had to fight to the last minute to get the win, we have a pretty tight squad and we have a lot of young boys going through the academy who have played a lot of rugby together.”

“You can see in defence we are really working hard for each other and backing each other up and a lot of the resilience comes from that.”

With conditions unlikely to be favourable for free flowing rugby Ulster will be happy to go to the maul which has been a potent weapon in recent wins.

“We’re see what the conditions are in Galway but over the last four or five weeks are maul has clicked and hopefully we can keep doing that and it might be a weapon we need.”

“I thought we didn’t start the game the way we wanted to and going down to 14 men made things difficult for ourselves but I thought we did well in that period to weather the storm and I thought we played some good rugby and got some territory.”

“Away from home you have to start fast and keep the pressure on.”

Ulster have lost two of their three Irish derbies this season.

“There is an extra bit in the games, they are very physical because they are big games, some of us are good mates of the pitch but on the pitch it all changes and you are playing for pride.”

p Scotland centre Huw Jones has agreed a new two-year deal with Glasgow Warriors.

The 25-year-old has scored four tries in 15 appearances for the Warriors since arriving at the club in 2017 from Stormers.

Jones made his Scotland debut against Japan in 2016 and has gone on to score 10 tries in 19 internationals.

Jones told Glasgow Warriors TV: “I’m really happy to be staying for another two years and hopefully we can win some trophies. You’re managed very well (playing in Scotland) and it does help that you’re closer to the Scotland coaches.

“The coaching set-up here at Glasgow Warriors is world class, so it’s definitely the right decision for my career.”