Ulster's Dave McCann expects different Leinster 'edge' for URC knockout clash

Ulster's Dave McCann acknowledges Leinster will bring a different "edge" when the sides meet in the quarter-finals of the BKT United Rugby Championship on Saturday.

Richie Murphy's team have already done the double over Leinster this season, winning 22-21 at the RDS in January and 23-21 in Ravenhill last month.

With Leo Cullen’s charges having lost another Champions Cup final, back row McCann expects to face a team desperate to prevent a third successive defeat to the visitors at the Aviva Stadium (5pm).

"You’ve got to take confidence that you know the process of how to beat them," said the 23-year-old, who scored a try in Ulster's 29-24 defeat to Munster on Saturday.

"They’ll obviously bring a bit more edge this weekend so it’s exciting.

"Hopefully we can impose our game plan on them."

Ulster finished the regular season with four wins in their final five matches and McCann added that the team has enjoyed playing under new head coach Murphy, who took over from Dan McFarland in March.

"We’ve got a really good buy-in now about how we want to go about our business and actually implementing that has become a bit easier with the training we’ve had over the past few weeks.

"Going away to South Africa, going away to France, that really put us on a certain level but we’ve backed that up over the past few weeks so it’s exciting."

Meanwhile, Ulster are sweating on the fitness of a number of players ahead of the game.

Ethan McIlroy (back) and Stuart McCloskey (groin) were both late withdrawals from the Munster game, while Kieran Treadwell (calf) (below) and Alan O'Connor (head injury) were replaced in the first half at Thomond Park.

Elsewhere, Leinster assistant coach Andrew Goodman says just because they are likely to field a first-choice