Gibbes wary of "defensively hungry" Connacht

Ulster head coach Jono Gibbes says his side's 57-year home unbeaten record against Connacht will count for nothing against Kieran Keane's "defensively hungry" team on Friday.

Gibbes was impressed by Connacht's gutsy performance in last week's 36-27 defeat to reigning champions Scarlets at Parc y Scarlets, and is expecting more of the same when Ulster take on the Westerners in the Pro 14 at the Kingspan Stadium.

"They had their best performance of the season against Scarlets, defensively they were hungry," he said. 

"We have seen Scarlets’ quality first hand and Connacht took them all the way to wire away from home.

"They will take confidence from that, they will be building towards a big one come Friday."

Ulster have been inconsistent this season, beating the champions Scarlets three weeks ago, but losing for the first time in their history to Italian side Zebre on Saturday.

They sit third in conference B, with 19 points from five matches, level with Leinster and two points behind leaders Scarlets.

"We have been pretty thorough with the Zebre stuff and we have had to quickly move to being clear to what we have to do against Connacht because it is a big challenge," he continued.

Ulster loosehead Kyle McCall, who will his 40th cap against Connacht, agrees with Gibbes that Connacht's poor record up North will count for little.

"We haven't talked about it," the 25-year-old said.

"What we've talked about is that it's an inter-pro and every inter-pro is as big as the next. This is as close as you’re going to get to a European game. It'll be exciting this week."

McCall admits there has been much soul-searching and discussion in the squad about last week's shock 27-23 defeat to Zebre in Parma.

"It's something we have looked at," McCall. 

"It's a sort of a 'next job mentality'. At the weekend we put error on error on error, but in the squad we look at it that when someone makes an error, as everyone does, that it’s about the next job and trying to do the simple things well.

"Last week, our basics weren't good enough. We lacked the right energy but fair play to Zebre, they brought plenty of energy, which we struggled to deal with."

Photo Inpho/ Darren Kidd

Ulster host Premiership side Wasps in their European Champions Cup Pool A opener at Kingspan Stadium on Friday, 13 October, a match which will be shown live on BT Sport on the eir Sport pack.