Welcome back to the Red Hand Podcast. It has been a while.

Now that the side-show distraction of the World Cup is over, we are back to the main event - the URC - as Ulster prepare to face Zebre away in their opening game.

The dust has settled on yet another disappointing campaign as Ireland yet again crashed out in the quarters. We won't dwell on this - plenty has been said by others about their early departure. Suffice to say, we would have won if more Ulster men had been on the field.

I'm joking of course, but it's worth thinking about the Ulster contingent (or lack of) in the Ireland squad and look ahead to which players from the current Ulster squad will feature prominently for Ireland in the coming years.

It has been a summer of change at Ulster and we consider these changes - the powers that be have decided to rip up the hallowed turf at Ravenhill and replace it with a plastic one. We've also said farewell to a number of players in the off-season including the likes of fan favourites Craig Gilroy, Duane Vermeulen, Jeff Toomaga-Allen and Ian Madigan.

We're sad to see them go, but we'll also be welcoming new signings Dave Ewers, Steven Kitschoff as well as James French. We will look forward to watching some promising youngsters step up to hopefully fill the void.

Of course, there's also the small matter of our season opener against Zebre to talk about.

To discuss all of the above I'm joined by Nathan, Ian, Patrick and Paul.