Ulster Rugby vs Toulon

Tommy Bowe reflects on what was a hard to take defeat away to Leicester Tigers last weekend but insists that the team are in fighting spirit to take on reigning Champions Toulon this afternoon… TOMMY BOWE: “THESE ARE THE GAMES THAT EXCITE US”

an enormous game coming up against Toulon the reigning champions - so the talk is focused on that, everyone is excited, it is a full house and it is a huge opportunity for us to turn it around. “As rugby players, these are the fixtures that we all get excited about playing and certainly everyone in Belfast and in Ulster will be chomping at the bit to get this game going on Saturday and we can’t wait for Toulon to come to town.” It is essential that Ulster can optimise the fortress nature of Kingspan Stadium and get the points this weekend: “This competition is so difficult and you certainly have to win your home matches. But I do think if that wasn’t to go to plan, we have plenty of opportunities to get away and we would be confident in facing the remaining pool games. However at the moment we are fully focused on getting a win this weekend. With a full house here the atmosphere is unreal, even against Glasgow a few weeks ago the atmosphere was electric, so if we can give the crowd something to get behind, we know the atmosphere will be amazing.” The visiting line-up includes world class operators like Bastareaud, Giteau, Armitage and Habana but Bowe will treat it as he does any other game: “Look you change things up slightly no matter who you play against, I look at areas I can attack, running different lines against different people, obviously my opposite number and players in the back three that we might come up against to see if we can pick up weaknesses or trends in their game that we can exploit. So when we get on the pitch on Saturday and have a split second to think, we know what they are going to do and how to counteract that, that is the benefit of video analysis and why we use it every week.”

“We were obviously disappointed by our performance especially in the first half,” says Bowe. “I think that we started the game well but then a few errors crept in and we gave away a few penalties which gave Leicester, who are a strong European side, the opportunity to get their tails up. They scored a try and I think they went through a purple patch, they got a bit of confidence and for us we just lacked composure and fell away from them for 15 minutes and that’s when they accumulated points. “We obviously addressed that during the break, but given where we were at that stage in the game we were lucky to come away with a losing bonus point and not having given them a bonus point. During the second half I believe we got ourselves back into a position where we could have won. It’s a performance we were not very happy with, but at the same time we came away with a point away from home which is a good sign of where we are as a team. Going away to a European powerhouse like Leicester and to be so disappointed with only picking up a point just shows the standards that we expect from each other and how hungry we are to do well in this tournament.” In the 55th minute of last weekend’s game Bowe scored his 25th European try following some great inter-play with Jared Payne down the right wing: “It was a nice try, I was delighted to get over,” claims Bowe. “It’s always good to get over straight from a set piece, they are the ones that the forwards enjoy the most. It shows how dangerous we can be, there is strength throughout the pitch and whenever we do get the opportunity it is nice to be able to put away a try like that. It is certainly up there with one of my favourite tries and it’s nice to be back to scoring ways again.” However, with French giants Toulon coming to town the team do not have much time to dwell on the misfortunes of last weekend… “We looked at the Leicester game early on Monday and have put it behind us, we have

TOMMY BOWE

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ULSTER RUGBY

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