Herring vows minds won’t drift to Leinster clash
Ulster hooker Rob Herring vows they won’t let minds wander to next week’s European Cup clash with Leinster in Dublin when the Southern Kings come to the Kingspan Stadium on Saturday.
Having secured 16 points during the Six Nations window to consolidate their third place in Conference B, Herring, who scored a hat-trick of tries against Zebre in Feburary, wants to see Ulster continue their winning ways, but regards the Kings’ visit as a potential banana skin.
“Obviously there is that big game next week, but to be honest no-one has really mentioned it. We’ve come in and been solely focused on the Kings.
“We had a good Six Nations period, and I thought the squad did really well with lots of hard work put in,” said Herring, who trained regularly with the Ireland squad during the Six Nations.
“We had a training week a couple of weeks ago and then the guys got time off to rest and recover, so they’ve come back in fresh and looking forward to being back at home.
“Our side of the table is very tight and these are the games where we’ve really got to put in performances and hopefully get a big win.
“The game away to the Kings was a difficult one. It was very stop-start and we probably didn’t use the advantage of all the penalties.
They had 23 penalties against them or something and I think we turned over 12 balls in contact so it’s hard to get anything going.
“For us this weekend, we’ve really got to keep control of the ball, put some phases together and hopefully get another dominant set-piece performance.
“They are a dangerous side. They have some great players.
We watched a few clips from the Edinburgh game and some of the tries they’re scoring are ridiculous. They can create something from nothing so if we give them space and time and the ball they can really do some damage.
“In terms of our side of the table we really need to be kicking on and hopefully pushing for that home play-off spot in the PRO14.
“It’s massive game and it would be a shame to rock up this weekend and not put in the performance with the intensity we’ve had for the last few games,” he added.
