Ulster must 'feed off success' of Ireland contingent

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 and achieve the 'Triple Crown'.

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.

The Ospreys were 21-10 victors when the sides met in the United Rugby Championship on 28 February.

Sandwiched between wins over Edinburgh and Zebre, Ulster also tasted defeat at the hands of Connacht at the Affidea Stadium.

"I think there's an excitement about knockout rugby. We are at the stage where we know if we can back up some really good performances we can put ourselves in a really good position," Murphy told BBC Sport NI.

"It's really important that we don't go away from who we are as a team, the way we have played all year. We want to get back towards that, deal with the process and take each day as it comes.

"Not get carried away with it being a knockout game. Just treat it as we have every other game, then we should be OK.

"I think people underestimate how good Ospreys are. We played them a couple of weeks ago and we were beaten. Tight enough game, even though it was an 11-point margin at the end of the game.

"It's important we build a bit of an atmosphere and build on the back of that."