Ulster Rugby vs Zebre

LES KISS DIRECTOR OF RUGBY UPDATE

Rory, Hendy, Trimby, Paddy and Jared will be strapping up for Ireland on Saturday against the Wallabies. Most of them will be on a rest week for the Cardiff match but will be available to play against Clermont the following weekend. I am sure you felt a huge amount of pride for your players out in Chicago? I spoke to the guys that were involved with Ireland when they got back. I thought they put in an incredible performance against the All Blacks, we are so proud of the Ulster boys that were involved in that historic occasion. It was great to see Ireland achieve a win in front of huge support in America. A game I’m sure they will never forget.

What was the focus this week? The boys are extremely disappointed with the way things went last time out. So the focus for this week’s game is on making sure that we deliver to the level of expectation that is placed on this jersey and to what the Ulster Rugby badge is worthy of. Zebre defeated Edinburgh on home soil, a boost for them this season? Yes, they had a good win over Edinburgh a number of weeks ago, which I’m sure will give them a lot of confidence. They have been a hard team to beat a number of times this season and we have to be wary of them and aware of their skills set. If we don’t perform up to par our expectation this evening it will be a very tough challenge. The Italians have a good set piece, they are very dangerous from broken field play and they have a lot of very aggressive and quick players, so our one-on-one tackling needs to be spot on tonight. How is your squad looking? The squad is slowly being able to add to its depth with the return of some players. It’s great to have Chris Henry and Louis Ludik back fit this week, but unfortunately not so for Rodney, Roger, Cavey, Ricky and Al O’Connor. Luke and Gilly return from Ireland camp whilst Stuart McCloskey is very close to a return and will cover 24th man for us tonight. Lorcan Dow, John Donnan and Aaron Cairns are also injured for this weekend. Ross Kane joins Marcell

LES KISS

Coetzee, Pete Nelson and Matty Rea on the long term injury list. Stu Olding was called into Irish camp this week and has injured his hamstring which will put him on the sidelines this weekend.

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