ROB HERRRING WANTS Ulster to express themselves and leave nothing behind when they take on Leinster in today’s URC quarter-final at the Aviva Stadium.
The 34-year-old, who leads underdogs Ulster in yet another attempt to get the better of Leinster in a knockout tie, wants the northern province to bring ‘swagger’ to the interprovincial clash which will be his side’s third Irish derby in as many games after beating Leinster at Ravenhill and then losing to Munster last weekend in the final regular season game.
“The guys are coming into this week confident and trying to play with a swagger that some of the guys have,” said Herring who is Ulster’s most capped player and will win his 241st cap today.
“And I think there is a little bit of a freedom in the way we want to play and if we put our best performance out there, I think we have the talent and skills to go and do it.
“When it gets to big games like this you can get a bit of anxiety going into them and we just want guys playing at the best (level) they can again with a bit of freedom and that swagger.”
“It’s a massive challenge for us and we’ve got to go down and try to put our best performance out there,” added the Ireland hooker.
Though Ulster have already beaten Leinster twice in this season’s regular season outings against Leo Cullen’s players, Herring knows that this will probably count for little when it comes these crunch games.
“The recent Leinster game (at Ravenhill last month) was great to get that victory in a close game because that’s how knockout games can be.
“To stick in at the end and get a victory builds character in the squad and gives guys more experience.
“It’s going to be a different (Leinster) team we’re facing this week but the gameplan should be similar and we’ve just got to go out there and impose our game as much as we can on them.”
With Leinster needing to meet the expectations of silverware from this season — the URC being all that remains for them after falling short in the Champions Cup final — the pressure will be on the hosts to advance which could give Richie Murphy’s unfancied Ulster a shot at producing a shock outcome.
“I think we’ve got a good gameplan,” Herring insisted, “and if we can execute that to the best of our ability, I think we have a good chance of going and creating a bit of an upset.
“We’ve got to go and give it our best shot.”
Rob is a very fine rugby player and still produces the goods week in, week out. Ink his name down at number 16 for the summer Andy.
The42 can you please put all rugby related information under the rugby section? Lately some content is taking a long time to get into the rugby section. As a consequence some of the content has fewer views than normal.
Great article all the same. ;0)
Very clever messaging on the part of Herring, words like ‘freedom’ and ‘swagger’ would be chosen specifically to get up the nose of Leinster players who will feel a lot of pressure to win which can make you inhibited. Love how feisty Murphy appears to make his teams, I think he could be a really great appointment for Ulster over the long term, a lack of resilience is definitely one of the major criticisms that could be leveled at a lot of their teams of the past.