Ulster Rugby vs Ospreys

ULSTER BRANCH

PRESIDENT’S WELCOME

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 Shane Logan / / Chief Executive Chris Webster / / Domestic Rugby Manager Audrey Robinson / / Financial Controller Fiona Hampton / / H ead of Sales & Marketing

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

his international debut. It was also great to see Tommy Bowe make a try scoring return to the Ireland team. Against Georgia we saw solid performances from Darren Cave, Craig Gilroy and Robbie Diack, while substitute Stuart Olding showed what he can do with that brilliant score. It is great to have three of those players back in the Ulster team this evening. While there was much to celebrate in recent weeks; in recent days we have become aware that Chris Henry suffered a blocked blood vessel in his brain on the morning of the South Africa game. There are few people more passionate about playing for their province than Chris. Everyone at Ulster Rugby wishes Chris a full and speedy recovery. Finally, I would like to thank our main sponsors and partners, in particular Bank of Ireland for their continued support of Ulster Rugby. 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)

I would like to welcome in particular our friends from Ospreys: directors, players, coaches and supporters alike - I hope that you all enjoy your stay in Belfast. Tonight’s match will see Ulster take on the form team in the Guinness PRO12. Ospreys are top of the division and unbeaten so far this season. The Ospreys management and players must be congratulated for their excellent start to the campaign and Ulster will have to be at their very best if they are to take anything from this evening’s match. It has been three weeks since Ulster have played due to the Autumn International Series in which Ireland recorded a fantastic win over South Africa. The amount of injured players in the international squad at this present time made that win all the more remarkable. Ireland backed that win up with a comfortable victory over Georgia. We will all be hoping that it is a clean sweep of victories when Ireland take on Australia tomorrow. High praise must go to Joe Schmidt and Les Kiss for their success and it was particularly pleasing to see Ulster’s Jared Payne make

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

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