Ulster Rugby vs Edinburgh

IRFU ULSTER BRANCH

OFFICERS John Kinnear // President Bobby Stewart // Senior Vice President John McKibbin // Junior Vice President John McKibbin // Honorary Secretary Michael Boyd // Honorary Treasurer Denis Gardiner // Competitions Secretary STAFF Shane Logan // Chief Executive Chris Webster // Domestic Rugby Manager Audrey Robinson // Financial Controller Fiona Hampton // Head of Sales & Marketing Les Kiss // Director of Rugby (Interim)

PRESIDENT’S WELCOME

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all here to Kingspan Stadium for this Guinness PRO12 match against Edinburgh.

I would like to welcome in particular our friends from Edinburgh Rugby: directors, players, supporters and coaches, especially ex-Ulster Head Coach, Alan Solomons, who will always receive a warm welcome in Belfast. Last week Ulster Rugby suffered their first defeat of the season. It was a hard fought match in Italy against a dogged Zebre side. In truth, it was always going to be a tough ask of Ulster to win a game having gone down to 14 men so early and only for a disallowed try they could have managed to achieve the victory. Despite that result the Province sits in third place in the Guinness PRO12 and victory tonight would be a great boost ahead of next week’s game against Glasgow and then the start of this season’s European Rugby Champions Cup. Edinburgh have had a mixed start to the season. They began with a wonderful win against Munster in Thomond Park, but then suffered defeat to Connacht, then a considerable reverse loss to Ospreys. Last weekend they drew with Scarlets

at Murrayfield and they will travel to Kingspan Stadium this evening full of confidence and aiming to get a win. Since we last played at home, our U20s won the interprovincial championship with a fantastic 17 points to 12 victory over Munster. The result followed home wins over Connacht and Leinster. I would like to express my heartfelt congratulations to the side, to their coaches and staff on their wonderful achievement. They are the second Ulster U20 side in the past three years to have won an interprovincial title, following on from the side in 2012. This bodes well for the future of rugby in Ulster and I have no doubt that we will be seeing many of these young men in Ulster and Ireland jerseys in the future. I hope that you enjoy the game. Good Luck to Ulster and Stand up for the Ulstermen! Yours in Rugby. John Kinnear // President IRFU (Ulster Branch)

Kingspan Stadium, 85 Ravenhill Park, Belfast, BT6 0DG T // +44 (0)28 9049 3222 ulsterrugby.com

1

www. ulster rugby.com

ULSTER RUGBY