Ulster Rugby vs Connacht

could get the team across the line. So, whether your team does well or badly I think you feel equally frustrated, which is probably just more of an incentive to get back from injury sooner rather than later. Boosted by ‘the boss’! Seeing Bruce Springsteen in New Jersey was fantastic, it was amazing and it was shortly after that he announced his dates to come to Ireland so tickets are bought, that was another positive moment during my ‘rehab’ process! I also moved into a new house, adopted a new dog. I got a dog the last time I had my hip injury - so I got another one this time! Let’s just hope I don’t get injured again as I don’t think I could cope with a third one! Inter-pro rivals, and a summer tour!

Connacht has been fantastic this year and I really don’t expect their form to ‘dip’ between now and the end of the season – except against us of course! Leinster have had a few games where they haven’t played to their full potential so they will be looking to finish out the season the way we want to finish ours, with a good run of wins. Both of them will be competing for the title and all the players will be looking to, as they always do, impress Joe Schmidt before he selects the squad for the summer tour. There’s a lot of anticipation after such a long season about what Ireland are going to be like on the tour in South Africa, so obviously spots are ‘up for grabs’. We have seen Connacht boys get their first ‘caps’ throughout the Six Nations so they will want to put their hands up even further so they will have come back from the Six Nations and given Connacht a massive boost. These games will be some of the toughest of the season and we have to get our mind-set right and have our heads completely screwed on – not just for the two home games – but for the rest of the games in this campaign. The target for this next month? I don’t think it’s too early to have what you want in your mind, I think everyone in the squad wants to finish first or second, I actually think everyone wants to finish first! But first or second to get that home ‘semi’ would be massive, to have everyone here at Kingspan Stadium for our play-off would be awesome, as we know it’s going to be a tough game, whoever it is. It would be fantastic to finish out these last four games to guarantee us a home semi-final in front of the very

special supporters we have at Kingspan Stadium. That really would line us up perfectly for the final!

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