“I had no idea until [club photographer] John Dickson said to me and asked to take a photograph of me after captain’s run last week,” said Wilson. “It’s obviously an important milestone but to me it’s more important how the team does. These things you can look back on after your career has ended but ultimately you want to win silverware so it’s about the team and we need to make sure we get it right this season.”
Certainly things appear to be moving in the right direction for the squad after wins over Cardiff, Connacht and Leinster before the 23-23 draw with Munster last weekend. Reflecting on the latest match, Wilson was generally pleased: “If you look over the course of the 80 minutes we’re pretty happy with the quality of the rugby that we played and looking back at the video, we created plenty of opportunities to score tries. We probably made a few too many handling errors, which meant we were not as clinical as we would have liked. There’s a good chance we’ll meet them down the line [in the knock-out stages] and we’ve got to take confidence from the way we performed against them. In terms of our performances, we’re where we want to be if we can just tidy up a few areas of our game.”
Ulster produced comebacks late in each half to keep themselves in the hunt and eventually snatched a draw, despite having Iain Henderson sent off in the closing stages. The character displayed by his team-mates impressed the 33 year old back row: “With Hendy going off towards the end, the heads could have dropped a bit but it galvanised the boys and we threw everything at them and got the try. That could prove to be crucial in the end.”
Indeed it could. It couldn’t be tighter at the top of the table with Ospreys, Glasgow and Munster tied on 70 league points and Ulster trailing just one behind on 69. It will make an exciting end to the regular season as all four teams battle it out for home play-off advantage.
“Going into the last game this is what the organisers want and it’s what the supporters want. There’s the added excitement of having all the games kicking off at the same time. Anything can happen and even the teams below the top have a lot to play for in terms of qualification for Europe so it should be an exciting afternoon on Saturday,” said Wilson.
Although Ulster are relying on other results to go their way in order to secure home advantage in the last four, Wilson insists they will do everything they can to get the win over Glasgow to ensure there are no regrets should Ospreys or Munster slip up: “Whatever team we put out we will go hell for leather because if we don’t then and another result goes our way, say the Connacht-Ospreys game, then we may regret it. Undoubtedly we’ll give it 100%.”
Needless to say, the Ireland International is expecting a tough encounter against a team that has led the way for most of the competition: “I have personally never played at Scotstoun but they’ve got a great record and tend to play better rugby at home. With the top three teams on even league points, they’ll be looking for maximum points so it might open up.”