Marty Moore ruled out for remainder of Ulster’s season

Moore had to leave the pitch after 23 minutes of the league clash with Munster in April and sat out the Edinburgh and Sharks games with coach Dan McFarland confirming he would not be seen again in this campaign.

“Marty won’t play again this season,” the head coach confirmed.

“He has had a couple of concussions or more than that this season, the medical team have decided it would be best for him if he rested for the rest of the season which is the right decision.”

Moore’s injury provides an opportunity for Tom O’Toole to lay down a marker and book a spot of the plane for Ireland’s summer tour to New Zealand.

“Whether Marty was fit or not Tom would have been heavily involved,” added McFarland.

“Tom played against the Sharks and one of the best scrums in our league if not the best scrum.

“He was scrummaging against Ox Nche a world cup winning renowned scrummager and I thought Tom did an outstanding job.

“He obviously offers a lot more than set-piece. His physicality and work rate around the park are something that Andy Farrell and the Ireland coaches admire.

“This Friday night against Munster will be an opportunity for him to showcase what he is about both at set-piece time and around the park.”

Already capped twice by Ireland McFarland thinks there is still a lot of learning and improvement to come form the 23-year-old O’Toole as he learns his trade with more experience.

“I still say props take a long time to get their game right in the set piece area and particularly the scrum area,” he said.”

“The nature of the physical attrition that comes at scrum time means it is not like passing, you can’t do a thousand scrums a day.

“So the repetitions they get at the top level, and particularly against the variety of different opponents they face because there is so many different styles of scrummaging that Tom will face over his career tends to be spread out over a much longer time.

“It takes time to build that experience and you will often see that the younger props that are coming through, the ones that really burst through at the top level, show super strengths in other areas than the scrum.

“If you think about the games that come through early quite often what they think that really stands out for them first could be ball carrying, it could be physicality, it could be tackling or it could be their mobility around the park.”

McFarland feels the current Munster team ore more rounded than just being a forwarded orientated team.

“I think they still have the doggedness up front, they still have the ability to go toe-to-toe with anybody up front but I think they have added a lot more to their game,” he said.

“Some of their attack is extremely threatening with some of the ball runners they have in the backrow and their centres. Joey (Carbery) steering the ship from out half, they are a very dangerous multi-faceted team and a team that we can legitimately say we have struggled the most against this year.”