Ulster hooker Adam McBurney shares his thoughts on pre-season training and expectations for the season ahead.
Adam, tell us how pre-season training is going?
Pre-season has been good – it’s a bit different this year as we have been working with a new format. We’re in for three main training days and then the other two days we have been doing some extra conditioning to top up the legs.
Training has been pretty fun actually, but obviously it’s been tough as well. The plan is to have a lot of conditioning and a lot of focus on skills in this first block. Then, in block two, I think we’re going to ramp it up even more and add an extra day’s training and get more into the actual rugby side of it as we get ready for the start of the season.
Roddy Grant has come in has come in as Forwards Coach this summer. How has he settled in and what do you see him bringing to the set-up?
Roddy is great and fits in really well with the players and the management. As a squad we are quite young, and the coaching staff are quite young too. Roddy is not that long out of the game and it’s good to have a new face to chat to and get new ideas from.
He played in the back-row and brings a lot to the breakdown department in particular. He is also great with the line-out and has given some tips to us hookers, bringing in a couple of new drills.
In what way is Dan McFarland integrating into that work with the forwards?
Dan is taking more of the scrum and Roddy has been taking a good bit of the lineout. It’s good to have them both working with the forwards and chipping in with bits and pieces of knowledge.
They’re able to bounce off each other while helping out the players and chip in with their own bits of advice.
Moving into pre-season, I presume there is a pretty good buzz around the team?
The age profile of the squad is great. There’s a freshness and excitement coming from the young players who have come into the squad.
A lot of the younger lads now have experience which obviously helps going into next season. A lot is expected of us now and we have an opportunity to learn some lessons from last season to get to the next level.
Rory (Best) won’t be back at Ulster and Rob (Herring) could potentially be on international duty for part of the season. Do you see this season as an opportunity to put down your name for a spot in the team?
Yeah, definitely. Obviously, when I heard Rory was retiring, I knew that was possibly going to open-up more game time and this was the year I’ve really targeted.
Moving into pre-season, I presume there is a pretty good buzz around the team?
The age profile of the squad is great. There’s a freshness and excitement coming from the young players who have come into the squad.
A lot of the younger lads now have experience which obviously helps going into next season. A lot is expected of us now and we have an opportunity to learn some lessons from last season to get to the next level.
Rory (Best) won’t be back at Ulster and Rob (Herring) could potentially be on international duty for part of the season. Do you see this season as an opportunity to put down your name for a spot in the team?
Yeah, definitely. Obviously, when I heard Rory was retiring, I knew that was possibly going to open-up more game time and this was the year I’ve really targeted.
I’ve learnt a lot in the past couple of seasons and got a bit more experience. This year I will be going out and attacking the opportunity and doing my best to prove what I can do in pre-season.Is there anything in particular that you are trying to focus on in pre-season – fitness, skills or otherwise? Yeah, defensively my set-up at the tail-end of last season probably let me down a wee bit. It’s something I’ve been really focusing on with Jared (Payne). We have been learning the new system that was brought in last year. It’s good to have two or three months along with pre-season to work on that and once it comes to the actual games hopefully the learning curve will be done and we’ll be into the swing of things.