Mark Sexton praises Ulster's summer arrivals as pre-season finishes with Ospreys victory
Assistant coach Mark Sexton declared he was happy with Ulster’s pre-season as the province made it two wins out of two with a 45-28 victory over the Ospreys at Ravenhill.
After last week’s win in Edinburgh, Ulster scored seven tries against the Welsh region to take their points tally to 73 in two games as they concluded their preparations before the United Rugby Championship starts in two weeks.
“Pre-season has been brilliant the lads have really applied themselves, we've been really clear on what we want to go after so, the lads have done a really, really good job,” stated Sexton. “It's a lot of points to score, which is great.
"We've taken off where we left off last year.
"I'm delighted for our two wingers, Aitzol (Arenzana-King) and Chay (Mullins), who were brilliant at the end of the line and then the work that our forwards have been doing in the off-season to get fit and to be able to move fast, we’re delighted with that.
“From an attack point of view, it’s just about how well we can do our game model, how sustained we can be in our game model, and how we can do it from 1-80.”
Sexton admitted pre-season can be difficult trying to blend in new players with looking for performances and results.
“I think we always want to win, don't we?” he added. “I'm a terrible loser, so we definitely want to win, and then we want to perform.
"I think that's the most important thing, performing well and putting what we've done in pre-season into a game scenario, because at the moment we're training so hard and we're training against each other, so it's good to go out and do it against an opposition.
“As a coach, you always feel pre-season has been the best one ever because everybody's happy, there's no headaches around selection, everyone's in a good place.
“The sun is shining, everyone's happy to show up. Every year, here we go.
“It's just always an amazing pre-season, I think we're in a good position. I think it leaves us in a position where we've had two really good hit-outs against two really good teams.
“We pick a few bits from those two games, and we go, ‘OK, we need to get better on X, Y and Z’, but every pre-season is the best.”
Sexton praised Ulster’s two new half-back summer arrivals Matthew Devine and Jamie Benson.
Devine impressed on his debut against Edinburgh last week but was a late withdrawal from the Ospreys game, while Benson has already showed his versatility in the two pre-season outings.
“Matty's brilliant, I worked with him (Irish) U20’s and at Connacht,” said Sexton. “I love working with Matty, brilliant speed, really good decision-maker, so, delighted to get him on board.
“Jamie has been excellent in every position he's played, he finished the game at 15 against Edinburgh so he can play 10, 12 and 15, really good rugby player, very clever, knows the game well, so we're really excited to have those two guys, but then also, you know, the forwards who make it easy for the backs.”