Darren Cave hails the impact of Ulster’s rising stars

Cave made 229 appearances for the province and won 11 Ireland caps including being picked in the 2015 world cup squad.

Since retiring Cave has become a pundit with Premier Sports putting him in the prefect position to cast his eye over Ulster’s new midfield partnership.

Hume turned 22 in September and has already played 28 times for Ulster scoring his side’s only points in the Pro14 final against Leinster with a stunning try.

Moore celebrated his 21st birthday in August and has bagged five tries in 11 appearances for Ulster since making his debut against Leinster in December 2019.

“From restart and for the first six games after it I thought James Hume was probably Ulster’s best player particularly because Stuart McCloskey missed a few games through injury and being in the bubble,” said Cave.

“It looked like he had opened up a bit of a gap on Stewart then he came in and he has been brilliant as well.

“The more players you can have the better it is, it’s not a position where Ulster are short for numbers.

“They are very different players though.

“What I love about James Hume is Ulster have had a huge reliance on Stuart McCloskey, if Stuart doesn’t play now James Hume can do his job because he is a similar player.

“He is big, offloads the ball and you put him along side a Stewart Moore or a Luke Marshall.

“It is great to have two really talented players, Stewart reminds me of (Henry) Slade (Exeter and England centre) a bit.

“He has nice skills, nice left foot and a nice sort of lazy running style and step.

“He was everything that I wasn’t,” joked Cave.

With the IRFU facing financial hardship (posting losses of 35.7 million euro in October) due to a lack of crowds at international and provincial matches, Cave believes the governing body may have to change its policy on picking players that play outside for Ireland for the national team.

Ulster captain Iain Henderson is one of the high profile names that is out of contract at the end of the season along with Jonathan Sexton, Tadhg Furlong, Peter O’Mahony and CJ Stander.

Cave believes the IRFU may now have to look at what other Rugby Unions are doing.

“We don’t know publicly but it’s something that must have been discussed in the Scottish Rugby Union,” said Cave.

“Other than [Finn] Russell playing in France they seem to have said: why centrally contract these players and pay them half-a-million quid a year?

“Why not try and work with them?

“Initially I was thinking Johnny Gray and Stuart Hogg [both with Exeter Chiefs], now I’m thinking Adam Hastings [joining Gloucester next season].

“Are they just going, ‘away you go’?

What that means is it massively reduces your central contract model and it gives you the opportunity to produce the next one.”