Rugby

Ulster players keen to improve on previous encounters with Glasgow Warriors

Ian Henderson is one of five players who were present at Ulsters last victory over Glasgow Warriors, in 2011.
Ian Henderson is one of five players who were present at Ulsters last victory over Glasgow Warriors, in 2011. Ian Henderson is one of five players who were present at Ulsters last victory over Glasgow Warriors, in 2011.

FOR the majority of the Ulster players who will face Glasgow Warriors in the PRO12 tonight, memories of previous visits to Scotstoun have been nothing but painful, but Iain Henderson is among the exceptions.

The Irish international back row forward is one of five members of the starting line-up who played in Ulster’s last success in Glasgow – back in October 2012 when they won a Heineken Cup match 19-8 with Paddy Jackson kicking over 14 points.

Jackson and Henderson will both start this evening and will be joined in the XV by three other survivors from the match of four years ago in Ruan Pienaar, who will partner Jackson at half-back, centre Darren Cave and Jared Payne, who will make his first appearance of the season.

Payne will wear the number 15 jersey tonight, meaning All Black Charles Piutau moves to the right wing, with Louis Ludik occupying the other flank. Returning Ireland captain Rory Best will come off the bench at some stage to fit in at hooker.

Glasgow, with two wins out of three so far, go into the game in search of a sixth consecutive victory over Ulster at Scotstoun since that 2012 reverse.

Gregor Townsend’s team welcome back from Scotland fly-half Finn Russell, whose last-gasp conversion in 2015 sent Ulster crashing out of the PRO12 at the semi-final stage.

That was a crippling blow for Henderson and his team-mates, but the Ulster giant still likes Glasgow’s home ground.

“In my first season when we beat them in the European Cup, there was quite a large student contingent from over here and I had quite a few friends at the game, so it holds good memories,” he said.

“But in the past few seasons Scotstoun hasn’t been a happy hunting ground for us and it’s definitely going to be tough as Glasgow are a top-flight side.

“As they proved in the semi-final against us a couple of seasons ago, they’re such a good side, not only for the first half or 60 minutes. One thing you have to credit them for is they play right to the end.

“If you don’t stay completely in the game, as they’ve shown in the past, Glasgow will be happy to sit there and take it and wait for the other team to switch off.”

Henderson is well aware of the threats Glasgow carry, although he feels his side are more than capable of ending their bad run against them.

“Over the past number of seasons, they’ve had a really good offloading game, flooding the channels and counter-attacking so we need to be smart closing down the channels and not allowing them to get into their quick, free-flowing game,” he said.

“Obviously Stuart Hogg’s kicking game can really punish sides so we’ll have to make sure we close them down.

“But we’ll go across there with every belief we can get a win. We know we’ve got a world-class side, especially now we’ve players coming back in who haven’t played for us yet, so I don’t see any reason why we should be going across there expecting to come out second-best.”

Former Ulster player Tommy Seymour who was brought up in Belfast but qualifies for Scotland because his mother was born there, has been in brilliant form this season in Glasgow’s all-international back-three, having scored six tries already.

Ulster’s analyst and skills coach Niall Malone has first-hand experience of the Scottish wing’s ability.

“I coached the Ballymena team when Tommy had a good season for Ulster A but I have to admit it was quite a surprise just how well he’s been performing more recently,” he said.

“I think if you were to pick a Lions squad at the minute, you’d have to have Tommy Seymour in it.”

“He’s always played well against Ulster and you can only hope these familiar faces don’t haunt you.”