WITH Andrew Trimble and Stuart Olding unlikely to recover in time for this weekend’s trip to Clermont, things are unlikely to change too drastically for Ulster.
The Irish pair missed out on last Saturday’s thrilling 39-32 win over the French giants through injury and although they trained yesterday, head coach Neil Doak described them as “not very comfortable”.
The versatile Robbie Diack is also a doubt after he was replaced at half-time having picked up a knock during the first half.
”From a selection point of view, we’ll probably be quite similar,” said Doak.
“There’ll be a few guys that will travel with us and see what the back end of the week’s like, but I can’t envisage too much changes.
“There probably won’t be many changes. We were hoping Stuart Olding and Trimby would have been back in. We have a couple of extra days this week. They were training with us but were not overly comfortable.
“Franco [van der Merwe] will probably be coming back into the fold, Roger [Wilson] needs one more week. We’ll see how we train Friday. We’ll probably finalise things at the latter stages.”
In the same way that last year’s win at home to Toulouse changed the complexion of Ulster’s European challenge, their victory over Clermont leaves Pool Five looking altogether different.
It pulled Les Kiss’s side level with second-placed Bordeaux in the pool and gave hope that, even if they were to lose this weekend, they could still emerge from the pool.
Clermont tend not to lose at home. Prior to a Top 14 semi-final defeat by Castres in 2014, they had gone 77 games unbeaten at Stade Marcel Michelin.
They’ve been beaten six times on their own patch since then, all in the Top 14. Taking anything home from Clermont remains one of the tallest orders in European rugby.
“At this stage, if we got two points against Clermont at home, that would be the minimum,” said Doak.
“But we’re not thinking about that. We have to go there to win and try to put ourselves in the best opportunity to get out of the pool.
“It’s about being clinical again. It’s going to be a great stadium, the noise is fantastic, their crowd are pretty loud, and there’s a few guys have experienced that in the past.
“We have some seasoned internationals. Besty and the guys were saying it [the first game] was like an international game. The pace of it, the physicality as well, and that’s going to need another massive performance from us, especially away from home.”
Ulster recovered from a second minute score by Peceli Yato to hit their visitors for five tries and race into a 39-18 lead. They ended up hanging on at the end as the tournament’s second favourites clawed their way back to secure two losing bonus points.
That spell showed how dangerous the Top 14 leaders can be and Doak feels Ulster need to be every bit as ruthless in attack this Sunday if they are to take anything away from the game.
“It’s probably the most clinical we’ve been on the measurements we use; we were close to 90 per cent, which is absolutely superb, particularly against such a quality team. They have internationals across the board.
“That’s why the European games are massive, they bring a different level and edge to the thing. You need to be at your best. They got off to an absolutely superb start but credit to our guys, we got back into it, got a purple patch and put points on the board.”
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