Dan Soper highlights Glasgow threat to Ulster

Ulster have won all four games in the Pro14 and are two places and 13 points above Glasgow in Conference A but Soper felt they showed enough in Monday night’s defeat at home to Leinster.

“They have got better with every game they have played and everyone knows how good Leinster are,” said Soper. “I thought their performance on Monday night was really good, Jonny (Bell) has taken over the attack and they are a team that always wants to play with real speed in what they do.

“They shift the ball and they always have really dangerous starter plays, so you have to be on top of everything you do.

“Every game they play they always bring something new so it is a good challenge for us this week and there is plenty to keep us occupied.”

Ulster are two points behind Leinster at the top of the table and Soper wants to keep the momentum going.

“We’re just looking at the next game, the next fight in front of our face and if we win this week then we’ll start looking to the next week,” he said. “It is important to keep momentum.

“International windows are a challenge, you have guys coming in and out and it’s nice to be able to bring some of the young and less experienced guys into the team if the team is playing well.

“It’s always much easier for them to come into a team that’s in good form, so it’s important we keep performing.”

John Cooney is available for selection despite Ireland playing four days after Ulster, while Marcell Coetzee is expected to recover from the ankle problem that kept him from travelling to Newport for the Cardiff test.

Prop Tom O’Toole, yet to play this season, is still not available.

“He’s still working with the rehab group, so there’s still a wee bit of time before we see Tom,” said Soper, who believes Ulster have the strength-in-depth to keep rotating the squad. “We certainly like to reward guys who are training well, we have a bit of a plan in terms of rotation, where we can, and we’re fortunate in some positions we’ve grown enough depth that we can try and share the load a bit, and there’ll be horses for courses on some occasions.

“But we do make a big thing of we want guys to train well, we want training to be competitive and we want to reward guys who are training well.

“In some situations we are fortunate that we’ve got enough fit guys and we have depth and guys are pushing hard, in other positions at the moment we’re a bit thin but that’s swings and roundabouts.

“A lot of the time your rotation happens naturally, someone’s taken a bang and they won’t be able to train in the early part of the week and we’ve got other guys who are fit in that position, so let’s go with that.

“On other occasions you want to get a settled combination and in some positions that’s important - half-backs obviously.”