United Rugby Championship: New artificial pitch 'may be the best thing' for Ulster
- Published
The Kingspan Stadium at Ravenhill is the traditional home of Ulster Rugby
Ulster assistant coach Dan Soper says the potential installation of a new artificial playing surface at Kingspan Stadium "may be the best thing".
The possible benefits of having a synthetic 4G pitch at the home of Ulster Rugby are being explored.
"There is lots of research going on in into the surface," confirmed Soper.
"If it's going to help the product of the type of rugby we're able to play then maybe it's the best thing. I'm a traditionalist but also a realist."
He continued: "I'm not an expert but I know it's not easy to grow grass in this country in the middle of winter and if we don't have grass out there it makes a pretty difficult surface to play on.
"I'll let the powers that be do their research - they'll find what they find and we'll go from there."
Ulster will hope to make it back-to-back United Rugby Championship away wins across consecutive weekends when they face Cardiff at Cardiff Arms Park on Saturday.
The Irish province secured an impressive 31-24 bonus-point victory over Sharks in Durban last Saturday to sit third in the URC table.
"As long as we keep winning things are in our control so hopefully if we continue doing that we can get a home quarter-final play-off," added Soper.
"You always just want to be in control of your own destiny - you don't want to be looking at other results impacting where you are going to be finishing in the league."
Ulster's Jeff Toomaga-Allen tackles Sikhumbuzo Notshe during the URC win over Sharks
Cardiff 'a massive threat'
Ireland squad members Jacob Stockdale, Rob Herring and Kieran Treadwell will be available for selection this weekend, while Billy Burns and James Hume were among a contingent who did not travel to South Africa and are set to be involved.
John Andrew and Craig Gilroy both sustained a concussion during Saturday's win and are following the return to play protocols.
Cardiff's last game was a 30-13 home win over Benetton on 18 February.
"They're coming off the back of a good win last time out and they've had a little bit of extra time to prepare," said Burns.
"They're a massive threat, they're big at the breakdown, they've got some incredible guys over ball.
"Their fly-half, Jarrod Evans, when he's on form he's one of the toughest to defend against, he's a brilliant player and they have a really strong back three.
"There are areas we think we can put them under pressure so it's about getting stuff right and going into the game confident to finish this block of three games with a win."