Kiwi Sean Reidy feels right at home with Ulster six years after joining the province

The back rower has amassed over 120 caps for the province and has just signed a new two contract extension as he has become an integral part of Dan McFarland’s squad.

“I’m happy here and it’s good to be sticking around and get a bit of momentum as a team and a squad and it’s good to be helping the boys out and help drive that,” said Reidy.

“It’s coming up on nearly six years, I came over on a pre-season trial and stuck around for a while, it’s good.

“There are still a couple of guys hanging around like Andrew Warwick and John Andrew, they were early on in their careers.

“Louis and a few other guys have come through but there are a lot of guys who’ve moved on and you learn from them and then try and put your own twist on it.

“As you get older you naturally take more of a leadership role and help guys out and lead more by example.”

Reidy has featured in all bar one of Ulster’s 17 games this season, and has already played over 1000 minutes.

“It’s going ok, I’m just trying to improve every week,” he said.

“You can’t get too caught up in stats and you know yourself if you’re playing good or not so I’m just trying to do the best I can every week.

“I’m just trying to improve myself as a player and a person so that seems to be going alright.

“I’m chipping away doing what I can for the team, there’s plenty of depth at loose forward so if you have an off game you probably won’t be playing the following week.

“So it’s a pretty good spot to be a loose forward at the moment as everyone is pushing it along.

“As you get older you realise how much more of a professional you’ve got to be.

“You’ve got to look after your recovery, but not only that you’ve got to be doing your homework on the computers that much more.

“Especially as I’ve got a little boy now as well so things at home, you know.

“I’m probably not getting as much sleep so you’ve just got to look after yourself as much as you can.”

Reidy started in the 63-26 defeat to the Cheetahs at the start of the season but he doesn’t think either side can take anything out of that October meeting in Bloemfontein.

“It’s tough as they were completely different conditions and we know they like to play and if it’s a dry night here they’ll want to play that expansive game,” he said.

“They got a lot of purchase from us from their side to side kind of game and their wings and full-back made good breaks I’d say they’ll definitely be up for this one.

“You know who their threats are and what they’re going to bring, we’ll be looking at their team as a whole as they’ve got threats right across the park, we’ve got to make sure we’re on our game.”