Kieran Treadwell remains upbeat as Ulster progress

Dan McFarland’s are three points behind second placed Scarlets and eight behind leaders Leinster.

Ulster scored five tries against the Dragons with the final one coming after a barnstorming run from lock Kieran Treadwelll before he put Stuart McCloskey over.

“It just sort of all opened up, I gave it to Stu because there was no one quicker around and he definitely owes me a pint,” commented Treadwell.

“It’s just one of those things, you are always taught if you get hit from that side to fight square and fight north up the pitch and it sort of worked out because there was no one on the inside so I just broke through, there was another one in the first half where Hendy broke through, it was a good effort from the boys to get five points.”

The second row was happy to get a maximum return from the Dragons after defeats to Munster and Connacht in Ulster’s two previous domestic games.

“To get five points at home you can’t ask for more than that, the performance I think we carried on from last week we started really well, we lost a few reaction battles on the floor ball went down and the bounce didn’t go our week this week we made sure those balls were ours and we won all those scraps.”

“Sometimes with teams you get that step down after that hype of playing championship rugby for two weeks.”

“You’ve got to keep your head and keep pushing on, it’s a different competition but we don’t drop our standards from the competitions in Europe and it doesn’t matter who we’re playing against, we keep our intensity and I think we delivered that in delivering the same intensity as we started the Racing game with.”

Capped three times by Ireland Treadwell is happy to have regained his starting place in the Ulster engine room and has been pleased with his form.

“I think it’s in a good place, obviously there is a lot of healthy competition in the second row with me Hendy and Al.”

“It’s good for the squad and good to keep everyone on their toes and to have people just slot in whenever called upon, it’s good and personally I like where I’m going, I just want to get that match-fitness and match-time under my belt.”

Despite the scrum struggling again against the Dragons and a lineout that misfired on occasions Treadwell doesn’t feel there is anything fundamental wrong with the Ulster set piece.

“It’s not worrying, we’ve got a few things out, I think last week we had to draw a line in the sand and I think this week we definitely improved on last week with our maul defence and our maul attack.”

“In the scrums we felt a lot stronger this week and I think we’re going in the right direction anyway.”