Mark Anscombe: Excited By Leicester Challenge

With qualification for the quarter-finals of the Heineken Cup secure, Ulster Head Coach, Mark Anscombe, now has his sights set on the Pool 5 decider against Leicester Tigers at Welford Road. Both teams have qualified, but the winner of the game will have home advantage in the quarters.

“They are the English Champions, they have a great track-record in both their own league and the Heineken Cup so it’s going to be a tough task,” says the Head Coach. “It is one that we have to embrace and look forward to. For those guys that don’t play international rugby, it doesn’t come bigger than this. It’s going to be a full house there and they bring their team home there in the same way that our fans do at Ravenhill, so that makes it more formidable. The fact is, if you are going to win the Heineken Cup, or even be a contender, you have to win big games in daunting grounds like Welford Road. You can’t win the competition just playing at home."

Anscombe’s side have added incentive for the game. If they win, they will have a home quarter-final in the newly completed, 18,100 capacity Ravenhill Stadium. The Head Coach is excited by that prospect:

“It is great with 14,000 in it - put another four or five in here and it would blow the roof off,” says Anscombe. “We know that we have a tough task but we are looking forward to it and we need to make sure that we go there and don’t sell ourselves short. We have to really back ourselves and back what we do well and believe in ourselves to do well.”

So how do you prepare a team for one of the biggest games of the season?

“We met this morning and had breakfast and did a review of the weekend’s game and laid out a couple of the things that we need to look at this week,” reveals Anscombe. “We need to make sure that we get the details right but we need to enjoy the week and to get excited by the challenge of what’s in front of us. The media will blow it up and it’s a big game but we need to realise that the challenge in front of us is daunting, but it’s a challenge that we are more than capable of handling."