Ulster Rugby vs Connacht & Munster

but we performed above and beyond that. It set the benchmark higher for the following year and it has been hugely promising to see the squad really kick on again this year. To go four from four in the Heineken Champions Cup has been fantastic and having a strong start to the Guinness PRO14 as well has been really encouraging. There are young players coming through, getting league and European experience, and that offers a lot of hope for the future of the game. The senior performers are now starting to deliver the goods week-in, week-out, and the performance levels of the likes of Marcell Coetzee, John Cooney, Stuart McCloskey, Luke Marshall among numerous others show we have the right environment and are moving in the right direction. All we can do is keep getting better every day and who knows where the ceiling is for this province? It’s very exciting.

more accessibility to the game, which gives people the opportunity to play in a way that suits their lifestyle. While we clearly want to see new talent coming through the pathway, I’d love to see more people, adults and kids, just playing the game at a social level. On the Ulster team performance… The Ulster team performance has been hugely positive. Dan and I work closely together and it’s important that he has that support alongside him. The best thing I can do is make sure we have the right coaching group – and we absolutely do – but it’s also about making sure you do everything you can to create a professional environment to best operate in – the coaches and players need the right tools to do the job, so to speak. When I joined halfway through the season last year, we were delivering beyond expectations. Off the back of a few difficult years and Dan being new to the Province, no-one really expected us to deliver much,

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