Having been sidelined with injury for nine months, Wiehahn Herbst made his long awaited return to the Ulster senior squad for the Guinness PRO12 clash with Munster at the end of October.
It looked as though the prop would mark his return with a win, but Rory Scannell’s late drop-goal pinched a 14-15 victory for the Munster men at Kingspan Stadium. A week later Herbst also started in Edinburgh and it was disappointment again as the home side ran out 11 point winners.
The trip to Scotland marked the end of a hectic schedule that saw the Ulster men play 10 games in as many weeks across the PRO12 and Champions Cup competitions, and Herbst notes that the international break was a timely welcome:
“The break in games seems to have done everyone good. We’ve used the opportunity to get a couple of really good weeks of training in and there has been a real positive vibe among the team so now we’re focused on bringing that into the next game. A few more players who were out injured have come back into training so that also helps strengthen the squad and push everyone on.”
Next up for Ulster is the PRO12 Round 9 visit of Zebre to Kingspan Stadium on Friday night. Despite the Italian side sitting second from bottom, Herbst knows that Ulster are not in a position to take anything for granted:
“We’ve had some disappointing recent results but we haven’t been dwelling on them. Our emphasis has just been to focus on ourselves and address what we need to fix each week ahead of the next game. Zebre are very much an improving team and we saw what they are capable of when they beat Edinburgh recently. The PRO12 is a very tough competition. The standards are higher than they have ever been so you need to give every game your full attention.”
Despite having an away trip to Cardiff, back-to-back Champions Cup clashes with Clermont and an Inter-Provincial showdown with Connacht all to come before Christmas, the South African’s concentration is entirely on the task at hand:
“We can’t look past this weekend and we haven’t even spoken about what comes after Friday. At this stage of the season we need to take it week by week and look at the next game up. Every week presents a new opportunity for us to get back out there and put in the type of performance we know we’re capable of, so we’re all looking forward to that.”
Kick-off between Ulster and Zebre is at 7.35pm at Kingspan Stadium on Friday evening.
There are a limited number of tickets remaining - get yours online now at www.ulsterrugby.com/buytickets
It looked as though the prop would mark his return with a win, but Rory Scannell’s late drop-goal pinched a 14-15 victory for the Munster men at Kingspan Stadium. A week later Herbst also started in Edinburgh and it was disappointment again as the home side ran out 11 point winners.
The trip to Scotland marked the end of a hectic schedule that saw the Ulster men play 10 games in as many weeks across the PRO12 and Champions Cup competitions, and Herbst notes that the international break was a timely welcome:
“The break in games seems to have done everyone good. We’ve used the opportunity to get a couple of really good weeks of training in and there has been a real positive vibe among the team so now we’re focused on bringing that into the next game. A few more players who were out injured have come back into training so that also helps strengthen the squad and push everyone on.”
Next up for Ulster is the PRO12 Round 9 visit of Zebre to Kingspan Stadium on Friday night. Despite the Italian side sitting second from bottom, Herbst knows that Ulster are not in a position to take anything for granted:
“We’ve had some disappointing recent results but we haven’t been dwelling on them. Our emphasis has just been to focus on ourselves and address what we need to fix each week ahead of the next game. Zebre are very much an improving team and we saw what they are capable of when they beat Edinburgh recently. The PRO12 is a very tough competition. The standards are higher than they have ever been so you need to give every game your full attention.”
Despite having an away trip to Cardiff, back-to-back Champions Cup clashes with Clermont and an Inter-Provincial showdown with Connacht all to come before Christmas, the South African’s concentration is entirely on the task at hand:
“We can’t look past this weekend and we haven’t even spoken about what comes after Friday. At this stage of the season we need to take it week by week and look at the next game up. Every week presents a new opportunity for us to get back out there and put in the type of performance we know we’re capable of, so we’re all looking forward to that.”
Kick-off between Ulster and Zebre is at 7.35pm at Kingspan Stadium on Friday evening.
There are a limited number of tickets remaining - get yours online now at www.ulsterrugby.com/buytickets