Ulster's Stuart McCloskey welcomes postive impact of rule changes in United Rugby Championship
Ulster and Ireland centre Stuart McCloskey believes changes to the rules has helped to produce more attacking and exciting rugby.
On the first weekend of the United Rugby Championship Ulster scored six tries against the Dragons while across all eight games the lowest aggerate score was 35 points.
McCloskey said: “At the weekend there were so many points scored, it is a lot harder to defend now.
“You have to be so wary about where your shoulders are… once you win collusions it is so hard to stop teams; getting poaches now is refereed a lot better, legally now you can’t go past the ball, theer can’t be cleaners in the way of someone trying to clean out the ball.
“I think it makes it more exciting, and I like to see it that way. I’d much rather it be high scoring than low scoring, but I think when it comes down to big games it will definitely get tighter.
“The rules have definitely made a big difference. A lot of teams play similar attack, but some teams play that style better, But at the end of the day it is about winning collisions, you have to be so wary about how you tackle people; you just can’t whack people in the head anymore, you do end up winning more collision.”
McCloskey has amassed over 200 caps for Ulster since his debut in 2013/14 season and has seen a lot of changes in the attacking system.
“Yeah, it's night and day, it's funny,” he added. “I think I was talking to Hendy (Iain Henderson) about watching some of the old games, I remember watching my first Ireland game, it was 2016.
“Back then, the shape that the team was playing, it's terrible, we look all over the place. ASnd you look back at some of the old Ulster games, it just looks all over the place – and we were a good team, we were doing pretty well – but now it's just so much more organised.”
McCloskey has hailed new attack coach Mark Sexton’s influence at Ulster.
“Hopefully the fans will see a difference, hopefully you guys will see a difference," he said. “I think the biggest difference is how quickly our forwards are moving, how well they pass the ball at the weekend.
"It gives guys like me more time in space. Probably the best part of our team is our wingers and our back three in general, like if you get them the ball in space, Mikey (Lowry), Jacob (Stockdale), Zac (Ward) at the weekend – but then you have Rob Balocoune coming back as well, Werner (Kok) coming in – so get all those guys a little bit of space, that's what we're trying to do, conserve the space for them and give them one-on-ones.”