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One of the most inform players this season Caolin Blade spoke to the media ahead of Friday's showdown against Ulster in Kingspan Stadium for the quart-final of the BKT United Rugby Championship.
Ahead of the team announcement Andy Friend mentioned during the week that he had 41 players avaialble for selection going into Friday's game. Caolin Blade feels having so many fit players competing in training has really set the tone for Friday's clash.
"Having that many bodies at this time of the season is brilliant"
"Every lad has really made training this week extra competitive which is what you want ahead of big games"
"Friday night is going to be extremely tough but we know the 23 picked will put in a good performance"
Its knockout rugby, everything on the line but the Monivea man thinks you don't have to your produce your best performance in these games.
"You don't have to have your best performance"
"You need to apply pressure and not let the opposition have their best performance"
"It comes down to unforced errors and errors so the big thing in these knockout games is coping with that pressure"
"If you cope with the pressure your performance will come"
"For us we have a job to do and thats to go win this game"
With this being such a big game for both teams, the 29 year old spoke about the excitment levels he has going into Friday.
"You can 100% get excited for games like this"
"This is why you play rugby, for these games, these occasions"
"I've been around a while now and haven't played in many knockout games so on a personal note I'm extremely excited"
"I do think though that you need to match the excitment with the emotion but also nail the detail and sticking to the game plan"
"We need 15 lads that are together and back each other up"
This season has seen Blade rack up a total of 11 tries to date in the URC, the best try scoring form his of career The season has also seen him play his part in the recent Irish squads during the Six Nations and Autumn Test games.
"I've been really happy with how I'm playing"
"I've been working hard as I always do"
"I've got a good run of games under my belt which I think I'm building on each performance I play"
"As the team started to click it allowed me to be more free with my play and express myself"
