Kiss Assists With Ulster’s Preparations
Ireland defence coach Les Kiss has been helping Ulster tune up for Friday’s all-important Heineken Cup Pool 4 encounter with Edinburgh, taking the players through some tailored defensive drills.
With the snow and frost covers coming off the Ravenhill pitch on Monday morning, Ulster Rugby are confident that Friday’s must-win game against Edinburgh will go ahead as scheduled.
The covers will go back on each evening as a precaution, but the Met Office forecast for the week ahead is favourable, so it is all systems go for the Pool 4 tie.
The Ulster squad trained on Monday at the Sports Institute of Northern Ireland facility in Jordanstown with Ireland defence coach Les Kiss conducting tailored defensive drills.
It was a high intensive session with the entire squad taking part and everyone worked extremely hard in both defence and attack.
Kiss said afterwards: “We worked on some basics really, in terms of what Edinburgh are going to throw at us. They have been a good team this year with ball in hand, they like to play with a bit of width in their game and they have some tricky players in the 9/10 area.
“We were covering a few of the basics on what we are trying to achieve defensively. The session this morning was good, and when the guys don’t play a lot of games, and they are missing their opportunities on the park, there is always a sense of anticipation and hunger there, and it came out in the blokes today.
“They haven’t had a good game under their belts so there was a nice bit of energy here today. but the key is it doesn’t matter what happens in training as much as what happens on game day.”
After lunch, Brian McLaughlin’s charges returned to base for strength and conditioning work in the gym.
Tickets for Friday’s Celtic derby are available to purchase here, from the Ulster Rugby Ticket Office (Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm) and Ticket Line (tel: 028 90493 222, Option 2 (Monday to Friday, 10am-12pm)) and from Ulster Rugby ticket outlets province wide.