Ulster can trouble Toulouse says Iain Henderson

The French club have won the European Cup four times and sailed through their pool with contained Connacht, Gloucester and Montpellier with six wins out of six to earn home advantage in the last eight.

However in their two league games since the resumption of rugby Toulouse have conceded 56 points.

“We’ve got the back line, and hopefully we have the pack to produce ball for the back line” said Henderson.

“We want to score points, it’s in Dwayne Peel’s attacking mindset to score points and play a good fast-flowing game with plenty of offloads, taking edges when they’re on and playing a good kicking game.

“We definitely take confidence in that (Toulouse’s defence), but we also have to be wary of how many points they can score.

“Peely’s onto us on one side and Jared is onto us on the other side, and he’ll give us a few things to tighten up to ensure we’re keeping (the points we concede) to a minimum.”

“Toulouse, they’re one of those big names in France that have always been there and their trophy record shows that, and shows how high esteem they should be held.

“That’s something that goes with them, that will just add to the event and make things even more special.”

"Toulouse have threats all over the pitch and Henderson believes Ulster must stop the rampaging runs of Jerome Kaino, the All Black flanker won two world cups and has 83 New Zealand caps.”

“I’ve definitely watched him play a lot more than I’ve played against him, he’s an absolutely incredible player, there’s no two ways about it,” he said.

“He’s incredibly experienced and he’s very happy to lace up the boots year on year, he has a real edge about him, a real desire to win those battles week in, week out, which he’s continuing to do and rightly so, he should continue to play when he’s doing that.

“He’ll potentially cause problems for us around the breakdown and bringing his general experience to the team. It’s exciting, their whole team has many big names through it, but that’s just going to add excitement to the whole day.”

Scrum-half John Cooney has been recalled to the starting line up after being benched in the Pro14 final last weekend and the skipper has no doubt he’ll bounce back from the disappointment.

“John reads a lot of books and listens to a lot of podcasts on mental resilience and making sure you stay in top of your own mental performance,” he said.

“He knows exactly what to do, Cooney’s been in and out of squads, he’s been dropped, he’s switched teams and thankfully I think we’ve had the best version of John Cooney there’s ever been.

“He didn’t drop that in training last week even though he knew he was on the bench, and he knew that from the start of the week, his mentality was still the same.

“He was still out doing his kicks after training, he could easily have sacked that off and said he was feeling a bit down that day but he still went through his week’s work the way he usually would it was great to see, and it gave a lot of guys encouragement.”

Ulster have been dealt a blow as Marcell Coetzee’s troublesome hamstring has ruled him out of the travelling party, Nick Timoney takes the South African’s place at No8.

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