Versatile Harry Sheridan 'happy to play anywhere' as Ulster target United Rugby Championship quarter-final success against Leinster

The 22-year-old loose forward can play in any of the second-row positions or at blindside flanker.

With that in mind, depending on where he’s playing in a match week, Sheridan has to alter his training.

“I’m definitely happy to play anywhere but there are difficult bits to it,” he said. “There are certain skills that are required in different roles that are hard to master when you are balancing between the two.

“I think Izzy (Cormac Izuchukwu) has done a brilliant job going from second row to six and has probably been better than myself as he has really adapted to it.

“I love to see him running about the pitch playing open rugby and hopefully he can do the same in the Aviva as that would be class.

“I don’t think he – like myself – minds either floating from four, five or six...wherever the team needs us we’ll be there.

“It is not totally changed...it affects the little touch ups and tweaks that you do during the week.

“It is slightly modified if I’m going to the back-row. The extras might be slightly modified if I’m going to the back-row as there are certain things that I don’t need to do if I’m in the second-row.

"Then again I could be shifting into the back-row in the later stages of the game so you need to have all the detail covered.”

Sheridan’s first taste of knock-out rugby came in the 30-15 defeat to Leinster at the Aviva Stadium in the Champions Cup last April, a game where he was sprung from the bench and got sin-binned, but he now reflects on that game as part of his learning curve.

“There was a lot of emotion in that game...you just want to get off the bench and hit someone, that’s the main thing,” he added. “I obviously got that wrong and I’ll try to make sure I won’t do that this time.

“It is certainly something you review with the (defence) coaches at the time and say what led to this decision and what put you into that position where you were vulnerable, and you just have to make sure that it doesn’t happen again through all these different things and all these different factors in play, so hopefully it won’t happen again.

“Looking at that game when I was involved, personally it was a shock for me because at Christmas time last year I didn’t think I’d be in the Aviva playing against Leinster.

“This year I have put in the work and I like to think I have my place in this team as a reward for putting in the hard work in training and putting in the hard work in matches.

“This time I have been there and a lot of this team has been there. We know what we did wrong and we are looking to attack it this week and get a better result.”

Sheridan is relishing another crack at Leo Cullen’s side.

“You can’t understate how much of a test it is going to be against them,” he said. "We just have to be ready to come out of the blocks and put in an 85/90 minute performance and we’re really excited for it.

“Leinster are always going to be special...they are the biggest province in Ireland at the moment.

"There is a lot of noise around what they can and can’t do, but all I’m focused on and all the team is focused on is how can we upset them as we’ve done it twice this season.”