Ulster Rugby vs Zebre

CATCHING UP WITH ROGER WILSON

ON Captaincy I have had the honour of captaining the side a few times in the past, it probably comes with the amount of experience I have now and the number of years I have under my belt. I am the oldest player in the squad this season but I was really happy to be asked and obviously relished the experience until Rory returned. ON Pre-season Pre-seasons tend not to differ an awful lot but this year we did a lot more BJJ Jujitsu style training instead of doing more contact and it has been great for fitness. Generally the sessions optimise our time much more, we fit as much as we can into the day and try to absorb as much information as we can. Pitch sessions are short and sharp which is much more intense. In terms of the games, it was

ON The season starting Pre-season can drag on so the lads were dying to get stuck back into rugby. We enjoyed the friendly games but it’s great to get back into competitive games, it’s down to business now and this is when the results really count. It was great to come back fighting against Scarlets and it is testimony to the work both physically and mentally that we put in over the summer. ON Zebre We do fancy our chances tonight, we would like to think that we have built a fortress here at Kingspan. Teams don’t enjoy coming here, they know what they are up against and it’s up to us to lay down a positive marker at the first competitive home game of the season.

ROGER WILSON

You sometimes don’t know what you are going to get with Italian sides, I am sure they will be physical but we have just got to focus on ourselves. Andrew Trimble and Luke Marshall are available from Ireland again this weekend, they had a super run out last weekend so that can only benefit us and the lads can’t wait to see a packed house at Kingspan. ON Developing

always going to be tough travelling to play Leinster and to get the result was great. I thought we started the game really well, much better than the week before, the Exeter game was a bit slow, obviously it was our first game back but I just thought things were better against Leinster. Those young guys and the new players who were given the opportunity to play really

I am always trying to learn, that was my 14th pre-season, so it would be easy for me to stay in my comfort zone but its important that I keep pushing myself. As a group we are working on being able to think clearly under fatigue so we have been doing a lot of fitness drills until exhaustion and then running plays so it is all about thinking clearly and making the right decision even when you’re tired. This recreates what its like in a game and has made training really challenging but definitely beneficial. ON Goals this season The main goal is to nail down a starting spot as much as I can. I am getting on a bit, I am the oldest in the squad now and there is so much young competition coming through, so for me it is just to keep the standards high, keep training well, keep enthusiastic and enjoy playing as much as possible.

stuck their hands up. ON The newcomers

Andy Warwick had a really good game against Mike Ross in Dublin; Louis Ludik has really impressed me over the past few weeks, he is physical and gets stuck in and also Sean Reidy had a good pre-season run as well, everyone is pleased with how things have gone over the past few weeks but those are the three stand out performers for me so far. ON Improvements We still need to work on ball retention, but that comes with getting more game time under our belts. Early games tend to be scrappy, there are a lot of new combinations and players who haven’t played together before are just getting used to each other and also match fitness will only improve with time. It’s just a case of getting more game time in, trying to lift things up another level and tidy things up.

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ULSTER RUGBY

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