The arrival of BJ Botha has created much interest and excitement amongst the Ulster players and supporters ahead of the Magners League campaign.

Williams is excited by the options that are at his disposal now after a number of his lower profile new signings and rising home-grown young guns put in promising displays in the three games.

The arrival of former Springbok prop Botha for his first training session at Newforge has only heightened expectations within the camp.

“Botha is with us now, we have Rory (Best) to come back and a choice of two or three looseheads,” Williams said.

“Ryan (Caldwell) was a real plus and no-one thought he could get through 80 minutes, Carlo (Del Fava) and Ed (O’Donoghue) are playing well, (Kieron) Dawson and Davy (Pollock) are playing great while you have Matt McCullough and TJ (Anderson) playing great at six and Robbie Diack at No 8.

“Even looking at just the forwards, we have selection problems which are great, we certainly didn’t have them last season.”

While Williams admits the friendlies have shown up weaknesses in his side, what has encouraged him has been significant improvements both with and without the ball.

“Our defensive systems have been much, much better,” he added. “It has worked a lot better than it has in the last couple of years. Secondly when we have got our offensive system going it has also worked.

“What we have done as coaches is stepped back, given them more fitness and less rugby purposely for a period to pump the conditioning into them. Now we are all over teams in the last quarter and that is what we want to do.

“The last bit is that our new blokes have fitted in brilliantly. I didn’t think Ed could play as well as he is playing and Clinton’s turn of pace has caught the eye. Ian Humphreys has also done really well. With the young guys too we now have stiff competition in the squad.”