Juarno Augustus focus on team praise after personal Ulster boost
Juarno Augustus returned from a three-month injury lay-off to inspire Ulster to Friday’s 40-19 bonus point victory over Edinburgh.
The South African No8 scored one of Ulster’s six tries at the Hive Stadium and picked up the ‘Man of the Match’ accolade.
The former Northampton Saint had suffered ankle ligament damage during the festive inter-pro win over Connacht in Galway and missed six games.
However, Augustus got through the full 80 minutes on his return to the starting line-up as that win in the Scottish capital had lifted Richie Murphy’s side up to second in the United Rugby Championship overnight before the Stormers leapfrogged Ulster with a bonus point victory away at the Bulls.
The race to secure home advantage in the quarter-finals is tight with only two points separating second place and sixth with only six games remaining.
After consecutive away defeats to the Scarlets and the Ospreys, Augustus was delighted that Ulster were able to get a comprehensive victory outside of Ravenhill.
“It's quite a nice feeling after the game, there's positivity now,” he said. “It just feels like we can win away from home if we do our stuff right.
“We just need to keep doing what we did today and see if the next game away will be good for us.
“It's nice to score a try but all the other guys did the work and I was just there to finish it off.
"It's good to score a try and I'm happy to be back just to do a bit and help the team.”
Ulster rallied from five points at the break to score 26 unanswered points after the break.
“In the first half, we knew that we just need to stay in it...in the second half, when we play with the wind, our backs can do what they usually do,” he said. “We just need to go forward and give the backs the ball in space and then we'll get the points, that was good, we did that second half and we got the win and got the points.”
It was a big night for former Ballyclare High School prop Tom McAllister as he made his Ulster debut.
“It was really good, I was really nervous at the start but the lads got around me and the nervous went away was the game started,” said McAllister. “The scrum was good obviously I had a great pack around me which made my job a little easier.
“It was very fast and the physicality was up a level too, it is a bit of a jump from the All Ireland League but it makes it a lot easier when you have good players around you.”