Ulster connections hoping to provide spark in Sullivan Upper's quest for Schools' Cup glory

The Holywood school has never won the famous trophy, but head coach Adam Craig is hoping by adding former Ulster prop George Saunderson as forwards coach and also getting help from two players currently in Richie Murphy’s squad - Harry Sheridan and Wilhem De Klerk - they can taste success on St Patrick’s Day.

However, Sullivan we have to negate a tough Ballymena Academy side at home in the quarter final if they are to go any further in the tournament.

“We've got a really good coaching set-up this year," said Craig.

"It's actually a full change in our senior coaching team and having boys like Harry Sheridan and George Saunderson back in who are ex-Sullivan lads who've been involved in the pro game and are able to add a little bit more detail to us, it's brilliant, and Wilhelm come in this year as well and helped our backline in our attack.

“Having coaches that are playing at that standard is brilliant for the lads. I think it gets them excited, especially when you see their names on team sheets. We want these lads to aspire to hopefully go on to one-day play for Ulster.

“So, it's nice to be able to, I suppose, speak to the people that are doing that at the minute.

“We have been there and thereabouts in the last few years. Obviously we remember the semi-final defeat to Ballymena, so we're excited to go into this quarter and hopefully get past the team that took it away from us a few years ago and get ourselves back up to Ravenhill again.”

Sullivan reached the last eight with a 15-0 win over Down High School.

Craig reflected: “Our defence has been brilliant all year, the boys are working really hard on it and it's been something that we've had to stand by this year. Down are a really good team with a couple of really good players in it, so we were pretty happy to come away with nil.

“It is something that we will rely on on Saturday and hopefully get our attack firing a bit better than we were.

“Conditions were poor and I think we mismanaged the game a little bit maybe playing in the wrong areas and not getting through the phase count that we wanted. It's nice to have that two weeks to work on that, so, hopefully we'll come back better against Ballymena and put a better showing on the attack.”

Ballymena, who are coached by former Ulster lock Alan O’Connor and John Nicholl, eased into the last eight with a 40-0 win over Portadown College.

“They've got a couple of fantastic coaches up there and obviously producing a lot of underage players,” Craig continued. “We're excited by the challenge of it. It's nice to obviously be at home and I think that gives us a little bit of an advantage.

“We'll make sure that we're on point in our detail and around the pack because that's where their strength is and then hopefully we'll be able to unleash a few backs.

“I think it gives you a little bit of an advantage playing at home, but we've obviously got to negate their strengths and try to play to ours and make sure we come away with the win and take ourselves off to Ravenhill for the semi-final.”

Craig feels the team has a good blend this year as they aim to reach the last four.

“We have a couple of representative players, we have a few young boys in fifth year who have been in and around the Ulster set-up,” he concluded.

“We have a couple of lads who have played Ulster under-19s, Jacob McEwen, who's captain, and Henry Calvert, who's our out-half.

“He's great at controlling the game, so we're relying on those boys who have obviously got that experience at provincial level and the rest of the lads certainly have a lot of pride playing for the school – so we'll expect them to back them up.”