Sean Reidy delighted with Ulster’s turnaround in form

The latest victory came against the Dragons at Kingspan Stadium, when flanker Sean Reidy scored one of Ulster’s six tries in a man of the match performance.

Following the team’s latest success, Reidy is happy with how Ulster have quickly turned their form around from the disappointing end to last season.

“You can’t dwell on the past you just have to take it week by week,” Reidy said.

“There is a lot of young guys coming in that maybe didn’t get a lot of game time in those European stages, they are coming in and freshening it up and guys are pushing each other at training and that all adds to it as well.

“We are a progressive club and we are all trying to push each other and be the best we can be,” he added.

“You can’t get these points back so we are pushing to get as many four or five-pointers as we can because we know come the end of the season, they are like gold - especially when your Six Nations players come back - so we’ll push on.”

Ulster had their bonus point wrapped up against the Dragons after 38 minutes on Sunday and went into the break with a 35-3 half-time lead.

However, they lost the second period 14-5 and Kiwi Reidy admitted it’s hard to keep momentum when the game is virtually over after 40 minutes.

“It is tough but that is why we play rugby - we want that 80-minute performance,” he said.

“There were stages in that second half when we took our foot of the throat a little bit, [but] if we want to be competing at the end of the season for those championships we would be taking those chances.

“We’ll go back and look over those parts - maybe our game management - there were times when we got turnovers from the lineouts which wasn’t great, that’s life, that’s rugby [and] sometimes things don’t go the way you planned so we’ll take the learning from it and go into next week,” Reidy added.

“We were pretty good in the first half, moved the ball about and got a few tries; there are a few work-ons for next week but we got the five points so we’re happy.”

Ulster will break new ground next week playing their first ever Monday night Pro14 game as they travel to Wales to face Cardiff.

Reidy doesn’t think the date of the game has any significance but is expecting a tough game against the Blues.

“It’s an extra day’s preparation, maybe it’s a half-day training or a half-day off,” he said.

“We’ll be a little bit more prepared and a bit more recovered but to be honest with all this lockdown it doesn’t make a big difference what day the game is on.”

“Cardiff will be tough, they have good a good backrow and it will be our biggest challenge so far, it will be a big battle at the breakdown.”

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