John Andrew eyes Ulster starting role

Andrew has only made one start this season and a further four appearance from the bench, he has been battling it out with Adam McBurney for a spot on the bench in the match day squad.

With Rob Herring on Ireland duty Andrew wants to grasp any opportunity that comes his way starting against the Ospreys at the Liberty Stadium tomorrow night.

“The start of the season I was getting on alright and then I haven’t been playing much, it’s been frustrating, you don’t want to be a professional rugby player that doesn’t play rugby,” said Andrew.

“You can deal with it in a few ways, positive or negative, you know you are going to get a chance at some point so you can huff, do the bare minimum and just get by or you can try and get better and try and stay in the team when you do play.

“Ultimately that’s what you get picked on, you can train away all you want but you have to perform on the pitch, it’s frustrating. At the start of the year, I was doing alright, happy enough with how I was going, but just with the standard of the squad, if you don’t play well for a game, it’s four or five before you get another chance.

“It’s something I’ve struggled with a bit this year, you put too much pressure on yourself, if you make a mistake, which is inevitable, you can’t dwell on it for too long, that’s a hard balance to get right. Personally, it’s a hard balance to get right because I think most players are their own harshest critic, for this game, or whatever ones I get a chance in, I’m going to try and enjoy it, if you make a mistake, you have to bin it and start again, it’s easier said than done but if you focus on it, maybe it’s that bit easier.

“I want to try and enjoy these games and I think that’s probably when I play my better rugby when I’m a bit more relaxed, enjoying it rather than worrying about what might go wrong or what’s already gone wrong.

Not being involved in the team though has been hard to take for the 26-year-old.

“You prepare yourself every week, if you’re not in the 23, you still prepare yourself like you’re going to play, an injury or whatever might happen, it’s the highs and lows of it,” said Andrew.

“That’s why I was saying it’s nice to get a rest, you’re always up and down when you’re not getting picked.

“For most of the games I’ve been 24th man, you still don’t know, it doesn’t happen very often but someone can go down in the warm-up and you have to be ready to play right up until kick-off and then you’re not.

“You obviously knew Rob was going to be away in some capacity so I’m going to try and enjoy it, get as many minutes as possible and have fun.”

Andrew’s contract expires in the summer and he wants to stay at Kingspan Stadium.

He said: “I came through schools here and Ulster are the only team I every wanted to play for, it’s probably a bit different in England because there are so many teams but we have one team here and that is all you ever want to play for, there is more changing over there to get game time in different teams.

“It means a lot when you are from Ulster to play for Ulster, I came here with my dad from about six or seven and you’re watching it the whole time and at that stage you are probably hoping one day you would do it but you think it’s probably not possible and when you are doing it you really do love it.”