Ulster Rugby v Wasps

JOHN COONEY

Recently crowned the Kingspan Player of the Month for his impressive performances during September, new recruit John Cooney takes the hot seat to chat rugby.

You just joined the squad in August, can you take us through your experience with Ulster so far? I’m loving life here at the moment and have settled in well. I’m living locally, only about 5 minutes away from the stadium, so it’s handy. It took a while to get set up, the first few weeks I was just staying with a friend until I found an apartment, but that’s all sorted now. It was an easy move because I already knew about half the lads coming up having either played underage with them or for Emerging Ireland so I fitted in pretty easily. Ulster and Connacht are quite similar in terms of team culture. The lads are all pretty inclusive and no one is above the team. It’s been good fun and I’ve really enjoyed it so far. If you were coming in and got injured early on I think it would be tough but I’ve had a good run of games and everything is going well so far. To date we’ve had 5 out of 6 wins in the PRO14 - how do you feel Ulster have performed so far? I think there’s still more to come from us. If we start finishing off some of those chances we’ve had, like in the last game if we’d scored earlier on it would have been a completely different game with a much better result. The coaches are great. I had Jono in Leinster for three years, I think he seems to have changed the culture and toughened us up a bit which is something we probably needed. Dwayne has been class as well. It’s been great working with him because he’s an ex-scrumhalf and knows exactly what a scrumhalf should do. He’s given me good pointers and lets me express myself and play my own game, which is something I really appreciate. They know what they’re doing and they’re putting together the bones of a very good team. All the right elements are there they just need a bit of polish. But we’re hopeful that this weekend will be even better.

It’s been reported that one of your main motivations for moving to Ulster was to get more game time. Having featured in 5 out of the 6 games so far, how does it feel to be living out your ambitions? Yeah that was one of my main reasons for wanting to come to Ulster and it’s been great to get the game time. Even small things like getting to train as the starting team each week, getting a few more reps in training makes a big difference for getting those personnel connections that bit sharper so that come game time it’s a lot easier. That was my main thing. I always believed that I had the ability to be in there starting each week, but sometimes I didn’t get the opportunity so it’s great to finally have that now. In terms of your own personal ambitions – what’s next on your to-do-list or what do you hope to achieve this season? I’d like to make the Irish squad this November but the only way to do that is to really perform for Ulster, so this Wasps game is a big one for me. It’s going to be my first European game for Ulster so first and foremost, my main goal is to perform at my best and do my best for Ulster so that I hopefully make the Irish squad and get a few more caps. Looking back at last Friday’s game against Connacht, how did it feel to play against your old team? Sore! I was sore after the game. I could barely sleep on Friday night I was so sore. It was fun thought. I think they had a big X on my head for that game so I had a few late shots on me and a lot of name calling and smack talk. It was tough. I’d still be very close with a lot of the Connacht boys, we’re great friends off the field so we went for food the night before the game. But on the pitch you completely change your friends for 80 minutes. I actually really enjoyed the game, it was sore but fun.

JOHN COONEY

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