Ulster Rugby vs Cardiff Blues

A CATCH UP WITH CRAIG…

running up against him! We know how dangerous Nick can be and we don’t want to let him play too much. When he was on our side we all wanted him to get his hands on the ball and play a lot but now he’s in a blue jersey we don’t want him to disrupt our game plan. How’s the mood in camp this week? It’s really good, we got some good work done in training last week. The workload was high intensity but we were able to relax a bit more mentally knowing we had another week to prepare for this game. It’s a boost to the team having all you guys back from Six Nations duty? Everyone is back in, which is good to have. It will up the standard of play, up the competition and have a positive knock-on effect to the younger guys putting their hand up for a place in the squad. They say take your chances and you certainly did with a hat trick against Italy, that must have been special? Yeah, I was delighted. It was great to be involved. It was my first Six Nations game in two or three years so it was great to get that buzz back and play in the competition again, which is such a tough but fun championship. I was delighted to be involved from the get-go, despite recovering from an ankle injury which kept me out for two months. Joe Schmidt filled me with confidence selecting me in the first place and certainly it would have been nice to play a bit more but competition is tough and you need to be at the top of your game. I think I showed Joe what I can do in an Irish jersey. It’s a tough run in to the end of the season with a summer tour at the end, which I will be looking to put my hand up for.

This is another must win game for Ulster? Absolutely, we are at that point in the season now where every game is a must-win for us. We want to strive to perform the best we can to finish in the top four and get a qualifying spot and hopefully even a home Play-off. That would be fantastic! Cardiff are in good form; it’s going to be a tough game? They had a good game against Gloucester and nearly won at the RDS the week before so we know how good they can be. Hopefully we will benefit from not having a game last week. No injuries, no fatigue and we had a really useful training week, whereas they had the Challenge Cup so may have some sore bodies. Nevertheless, we know they will be a tough side to beat. We played well against them over there and we have been away from Kingspan for a while so no doubt the crowd will be buzzing. The weather is picking up and the pitch is in good condition, so hopefully we can throw the ball about and with the crowd behind us, push on to win. What will you do to combat their strengths? They are going to be tough at the breakdown, they have got a lot of players who can get on ball well, get turnovers and slow the ruck down so we need to be on the money at the breakdown. We need to not give them a sniff and if anyone has the ball we need to act fast and get them out of the way. They have a threatening backline, the likes of Matthew Morgan and Gareth Anscombe are both good footballers. They will want to dictate the game but we need to make it about us. We want to be effective on both sides of the ball. Big Nick will be in the opposing pack. It will be good to see him but bad to have him back? It will be good to see Nick again but not good to be

CRAIG GILROY

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