Ulster’s Luke Marshall ready to kick on after injury nightmare

The latest setback saw the centre spend the best part of two years on the sidelines, but he made a triumphant return to the Ulster starting line-up in the win over Connacht last weekend and bagged the game’s opening try.

“It was good just to get 80 minutes under my belt again,” said Marshall.

“To start at home as well - that was the first game I had started since 2020 when I did my knee, and the first game I’d started with Stu [Stuart McCloskey] in two and a half years.

“It was nice for me to get back from injury and get it under my belt and just enjoy the atmosphere as well.

“To get the try, I didn’t have much to do, Stu did it all and I suppose now it is just about trying to kick on,” he added.

“I’ve had a bit of luck as James is injured, Stewart Moore is going away with Emerging Ireland, and you have to take your chances. I just have to put my best foot forward and see if I can give them some sort of dilemma.”

It was a long road back for Marshall.

“The first part of it was frustrating because it was a rupture, we tried rehabbing it in that first season but to no avail,” he reflected.

“It was frustrating because initially I was thinking I’d be back in a couple of months because it was just a sprained ACL, but it just dragged on and that was probably the hardest bit.

“Once I got to the end of the season and talked to the surgeon and he said, ‘that needs done again’, at least that was clarity, and that was frustrating.

“I suppose the other thing was being out for such an extended period before that with five months with my hip, things move on and guys come through,” he added.

“As I was rehabbing, I was thinking because of my age I’m going to slip down the pecking order. Things have moved on and you are not the first-choice centre so I looked at it as no pressure to a degree, and they definitely was, so frustrating times anyway.”

A new focus away from rugby helped Marshall deal with his prolonged period on the sidelines.

He explained: “I’m lucky in that I’ve plenty going on outside rugby, I’ve a young family. When I did my ACL the second time, I was coming home to a newborn baby.

“If I was frustrated in here, I’d go home and my wife would be, ‘here’s the baby, look after it’.

“There wasn’t any chance to get sympathy, that was lucky from that point of view.

“You have to accept those thoughts, you can’t ignore them. Even times after I got back fit, the body, my knee is still sore and you’ve other aches, you’re thinking, ‘I’m done, it’s not worth it’.

“But you take a step back and realise that you’re lucky to be doing what you’re doing.

“If it’s going to end, it’s going to end. If it’s not you’re going to keep going at it.”

Marshall keeps his place in the Ulster midfield for Saturday’s away trip to the Scarlets.

“The Scarlets are a good side and they are stacked with Welsh internationals,” he said.

“Dwayne Peel is there in his second year as head coach and he knows us all so well, he knows the shape we play and how we like to play from an attack and defence point.

“So that makes it tough when their coach knows you inside out and I’m sure he probably has a few plans and tricks to try and get at us.

“It is definitely going to be a tough game and we are going to have to be better than we were against Connacht.”

Ulster team to play Scarlets (KO 1pm), live on Premier Sports and URC.tv: (15-9): Michael Lowry, Aaron Sexton, Luke Marshall, Stuart McCloskey, Jacob Stockdale, Billy Burns, John Cooney; (1-8): Andy Warwick, Rob Herring, Marty Moore, Alan O’Connor (Captain), Kieran Treadwell, Matty Rea, Marcus Rea, Nick Timoney.

Replacements: Declan Moore, Eric O’Sullivan, Tom O’Toole, Sam Carter, Sean Reffell, Dave Shanahan, Angus Curtis, Craig Gilroy.