Neil Best has spoken this morning about the prospect of lining up against some of his Ireland team mates when Ulster face Leinster on Friday 26th October. The Ulster flanker has been back in training at Newforge with the Ulster Squad this week and is eager to hear the Ravenhill roar again.
“It’s always a pleasure to play at Ravenhill,” he says “so if I’m selected for the team I’ll definitely be looking forward to it stepping back onto the pitch.” And with the likes of Brian O’Driscoll, Gordan D’Arcy and Shane Horgan likely to feature as his opposition, Best is adamant that any international camaraderie will be pushed to one side. “It will be the same as any other match for me,” he admits, “the interprovincial matches are always highly competitive so you can’t let things like that effect you because once you get out there with a white jersey on you have to be a professional.”
Neil last donned the Ulster jersey back in May when Ulster closed their 2006/07 season with 16-10 win over Edinburgh Rugby at Ravenhill. In the weeks that followed Best was named as one of eight Ulster players selected to tour Argentina with the Ireland Squad. Other than couple of weeks back in Belfast (one spent with the Ireland team in preparation for the friendly against Italy in August) he has been on Ireland duty almost the whole time.
Now, almost two months after the friendly and after a frustrating World Cup where he earned 4 more caps but got just 44 minutes of game-time in the green shirt he’s back at home and keen to get back to business. His first task will be to help Ulster climb their way back up the Magners League table - but he’ll have to wait, having played three tough away games Ulster are without a match this weekend and have the opportunity to train, back at full strength, until their next home fixture.
“It’s been a while since I’ve played with the Ulster boys so it’s great to have the chance to re-intergrate into the squad before we have a match. Now we’re really getting stuck into training so that we can gel again before playing Leinster.” Best says.
Despite Ulster last three performances ending badly for the side he believes that they can still topple a full strength Leinster team “I think the structure of our defense will have to be at its best to fend off Leinster’s attacking backline. It’s important for our forwards to be winning the set pieces and performing at the breakdown, because it’s a derby match the intensity is always high so we’ll be giving them everything we’ve got.”
And with Ulster fans crying out for his return does he believe that one man can make such an impact on an entire team? “Not unless you’re David Humphreys!” he laughs.
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