Ulster Rugby v Ospreys

understandable that goodbye will be difficult for Bowe but he is surprisingly quick off the mark when questioned as to what he won’t miss about the game. “Pre-season. Absolutely. I hate it. Pre-season and me have never seen eye-to-eye. You’re literally pushing your body to the absolute max. Generally, whenever we get three or four weeks’ holidays a lot of the guys go and do a bit of training but I like to take those three or four weeks off completely so that first and second week of pre-season is just absolute hell. “I will not miss the dread of having to come back in and seeing JD [Jonny Davis, Head of Strength & Conditioning] giving me a look that says ‘it’s going to be a tough one, Tommy’. Not that I ever came back out of shape, but I was able to fall out of fitness very quickly so those first two weeks were just horrendous. I will not miss that.” In his penultimate home game for Ulster, Bowe prepares to take on his old team Ospreys. The four-time Guinness PRO14 Champions, have recently shown a marked return to form but Bowe is up for the challenge. “It’s always a fun opportunity to come up against the Osprey guys. There’s still a few guys who were there that I played alongside both in the squad and in the management. It’s like an inter-pro you always want to get one over and certainly with the Ospreys coming to town it’s a great way to kind of bring up my last few games. “They’ve had a tough season but it looks like they’re starting to find a bit of form again so we know it’s going to be a difficult match. We know that they’re going to be coming over here seeing an opportunity. But I’m confident that at home, in front of the home crowd, in the penultimate home game of the season, we can put on a performance and no matter what the Ospreys bring we’ll take the game to them.” Fourteen years after making his debut for Ulster, Tommy Bowe will hang up his boots at the end of the season but fans can be assured that he will not disappear altogether. “I want to stay involved in rugby and am trying to set up a schools tournament so that should be good fun. I’ve a bit more TV work lined up and I’ll hopefully be doing a bit more of my holiday programme and get more involved with my clothing and shoe line.”

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