Ulster maintain perfect start to the campaign as Tom Stewart believes 'something is building' within the ranks of the province

The hooker – who has been capped five times for Ireland - started the game facing the Sharks’ South Africa World Cup winning front row of Ox Nche, Bongi Mbonambi and Vincent Koch.

However, he then had to move in the back row and play No8 for most of the second half after Juarno Augustus went off and his replacement Sean Reffell got injured shortly after coming on.

Stewart got one of Ulster four tries showing a great turn of pace to gather Nathan Doak’s grubber kick.

He admitted after that it wasn’t much of a transition going from the front row to the base of the scrum.

“It's something that in rugby now, numbers on jerseys become less and less and the game just gets played,” he stated.

“It's obviously very easy for a hooker to jump into the back row and play the actual phase play and stuff.

“It's more difficult at set-piece but setbacks like that happen and it's just how the character and how the team get through it together.

“The boys were brilliant with helping me with where to go, Nick (Timoney) and Dave (McCann) in the back row, and the likes of Jack (Murphy) at No10 and we didn't let it get in the way of the job that needed done.”

Stewart hailed the Ulster performance which means Richie Murphy’s side are the only team in the league with maximum points.

He added: “Fantastic team performance out there against a very well experienced Sharks side. The boys are delighted, I think we really worked hard for each other out there.

“There's something building that's really special within this group and hopefully we can just start to kick on and start to get better and better.

“We spoke before about just playing our game, we knew we were coming over to play a very good side with heaps of experience at international level.

“We just had to put our game out on the pitch and try to do our best thing, and I think we did that, it goes a massive way with the league obviously, that's a big win for us.

“We had a big win last week and then putting it back to back with a big win away from home. I think that's the biggest thing in this league is taking your points when you're away from home, the league is so tight and so competitive at this stage.

“When you can get five points away from home, it goes a long way.”

Stewart set a new record by scoring 16 tries in the 2022/2023 campaign and the hooker already has two in three games after his touchdown in the Shark Tank.

“I think it was more just clinging for my dear life to try and stay in the play,” he continued. “I was very fortunate to get on the end of some scraps and then was able to play it out.

“We're trying to get to the next play for each other and have each other's backs, I think that was it.”