European Challenge Cup: Ulster must feed off success of Ireland Six Nations players

Ulster head coach Richie Murphy says his squad must feed off the positive experiences of their Ireland players in the recent Six Nations as they prepare to enter the business end of the season.

Ulster players, including player-of-the-tournament candidate Stuart McCloskey and back row Nick Timoney, played significant roles as the Irish team won their final four matches to finish second in the championship.

Murphy has all his Ireland internationals available again for Saturday’s European Challenge Cup last-16 game against Ospreys in Belfast (20:00 BST), while the Irish province also have a home quarter-final berth in the United Rugby Championship very much in their sights.

“I think the great thing for us is that we can feed off the back of their [the players involved with Ireland] success. The players that were in all acquitted themselves really well,” reflected the Ulster coach.

“This is the first week that we’ve all been back together. Some lads were off last week, some were off the week before, so it’s exciting to get everyone back in the same building and it’s really important that we build towards this game and also looking at the end of the season.

“Confidence is really high and we need to feed off the back of that, grow our team and really attack these last weeks of the season.”

Michael Lowry has been ruled out of the Ospreys encounter because of a groin injury sustained in training last week while James Humphreys (hamstring), Jack Murphy (ribs), Jake Flannery (shoulder) and Jude Postlethwaite (hand) are all injury doubts and will have their fitness for selection assessed through training this week.

Lowry was also absent for the weekend win over Zebre in Parma.

Ireland wing Robert Baloucoune had successful elbow surgery last week and will be sidelined for a number of weeks.

Sam Crean (knee), Charlie Irvine (lower leg) and Cormac Izuchukwu (concussion) have all resumed full training and are available for selection.