Ulster out to find consistency against Southern Kings

The South African side will make an historic first visit to Kingspan Stadium (kick-off 7:35pm) for the league encounter.

It will be Ulster’s first game since Les Kiss departed as director of rugby and the spotlight will be on the side to see how they deliver on the pitch.

While the Kings have not won a game this season, they ran Ulster close in the corresponding fixture - a last gasp try giving the Irish Province a 43-36 win.

Head coach Jono Gibbes has stepped up to lead the coaching team, but there will be no honeymoon period as Ulster look to secure a European Champions Cup place next season as well as a play-off place in the Guinness PRO14 Championship.

On paper it looks as though it is the perfect game for Gibbes to kick things off with but operations director, Bryn Cunningham warned of complacency this week.

“It is a home game and we expect to win every one of those,” admitted Cunningham.

“But the Southern Kings are a bit of an anomaly, you never know, the’re still relatively new to everybody in the competition and we’ve seen they can score some unbelievable tries from nothing and they have got a lot of pace and they are dangerous.

“For us, it’s about focusing on us and focusing on what we need to get right.

“From what Jono has said about training it sounds good, they just have to transfer that onto the pitch.”