Dan McFarland set to hand new Ulster signings Matt Faddes and Sam Carter their competitive Ulster debuts on Friday

He acknowledged that both faced a big chance, but is confident they will take it in their stride.

“It takes a little bit of time to assimilate to different clubs, they’ve both been at the clubs that they were at previously in the Highlanders, Otago and Sam with the Brumbies; they’ve been there a long time and been at one club for a long time and there’s a big change but, full credit to them, they’ve 100 per-cent bought in to what we’re about in Ulster,” said McFarland.

“I think they’re really pleased that they’ve come to a place where it’s a really good bunch of people and it’s easy to fit in and get on with that.

“If you have that kind of environment, then it becomes easy for them to give everything they’ve got and assimilate themselves with the organisation and feel as if they belong - that’s one of the huge drivers that we have here that people should have a sense of belonging and hopefully that’s developing, I now it is it’s developing in them.”

However, there was bad news on the injury front for the head coach with Ireland internationals Will Addison and Marty Moore missing, backrow Nick Timoney is also ruled out with the hand injury he picked up against Glasgow in the second pre season friendly.

Ulster have only three players in at the world cup in Japan and McFarland knows it is important to hit the ground running in the Pro14.

“It’s a long season, we have a lot of games so the season isn’t won and lost in the first three or six weeks but it is pretty important to start well and we want to start off on the right foot,” he said.

“Home is always an advantage, particularly for us, there are cliches that a pitch is pitch wherever you’re playing but it’s not the case, coming into Kingspan is something that I did as a player at various other clubs, it’s a tough place to come there’s no doubt about that.”

The Ospreys missed out on the play-offs last year but McFarland is expecting a difficult night at the office.

He said: “The Ospreys will be a better team this year than last year, I watched them at the end of last season and I thought they were excellent, we expect a tough battle.

“The Ospreys kick the ball more than any other team so the aerial battle is really important, if they are going to kick the ball to contest you have to win your fair share of possession. That’s the bottom line.

“They scored two maul tries against Edinburgh and we conceded three maul tries against Glasgow so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell what they will be hoping to do,” he added.

“They had the highest tackle percentage in the league last year and an excellent defence, we’ll have to be smart.

“I think everybody’s itching to go all the more so because we watched World Cup rugby over the weekend, you just want to be playing.”