Ulster Rugby v Glasgow Warriors

PRESIDENT'S WELCOME

On the occasion of my first match as President of the IRFU Ulster Branch, I would like to take the opportunity to note the pride and honour, both personally and for my home club, Dungannon RFC, to have been elected to this position. It has been a long pre-season and I, like every Ulster supporter, am looking forward to what will hopefully be a successful season, building on the great foundations laid down last year by Dan and the squad. We welcome our new players and their families to Kingspan Stadium and hope that their time in Ulster will be enjoyable and rewarding. The season is starting later than normal due to the preparations for the forthcoming Rugby World Cup. I wish Rory, Iain, Jacob, and the rest of the Ireland squad a successful campaign. It would be great to see Rory and the Ulster members of the squad parading the Webb Ellis trophy around Kingspan Stadium on a future Friday evening. Unfortunately, the Ulster presence in the World Cup is somewhat fewer than what any Ulster supporter would have liked. On this occasion, I see the reduced Ulster player inclusion as one of Ireland’s loss and Ulster’s gain. The majority of our representative teams have been in action in recent weeks. At the time of writing, the young Ulster A team have taken maximum points from their opening two Celtic Cup teams with excellent wins over Scarlets and Cardi‰. Hopefully, by the time you are reading this, they will have improved their standing again after last night’s Round 3 fixture against Connacht Eagles. The Ulster U18 Clubs, Danske Bank U18 Schools and U19s have all completed their inter-provincial campaigns, during which they represented the Province with distinction. The Ulster Women and U18 Girls squads, sponsored by Deloitte, both have inter-provincial semi-finals to look forward to at St. Mary’s College, Dublin, next Saturday. We wish them every success. On the domestic front, the Ulster club league competitions have kicked o‰ and I wish all clubs a successful and enjoyable season. To the travelling Glasgow team, management, o”cials and supporters, we hope you enjoy your visit to Belfast and we look forward to the return trip to Scotstoun next weekend. To the Ulster supporters, I look forward to hearing you get behind the team today and for the rest of what will hopefully be another successful season. SUFTUM! Gary Leslie President, IRFU Ulster Branch On behalf of Ulster Rugby, I would like to welcome everyone to Kingspan Stadium for this afternoon’s pre-season friendly versus fellow Guinness PRO14 side Glasgow Warriors.

IRFU ULSTER BRANCH 2019/20 OFFICERS Gary Leslie President Philip Gregg Senior Vice President Denis Gardiner Junior Vice President & Honorary Secretary Michael Boyd Honorary Treasurer Greg Irwin Competitions Secretary Jonny Petrie Chief Executive O¡cer

Kingspan Stadium, 134 Mount Merrion Avenue Belfast, BT6 0FT T +44 (0)28 9049 3222 ulsterrugby.com

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