CHANGE AS GOOD AS A REST

New faces & structure were needed says fit-again Bowe

TOMMY Bowe admits Ulster had to change tack for this season in a bid to bring silverware back to the Kingspan Stadium.

Nine years ago, when Bowe returned to his home province for a second stint, he did so expecting trophies would continue to stockpile on his

CV.

He had just left the Ospreys, where he had picked up a second Celtic League title, and was coming back to a club that had just contested the Heineken Cup final.

Yet there’s been nada, nothing, since then for the trophy cabinet.

Now 33, and with time admittedly running out, Bowe insists he doesn’t think about what might have been if he hadn’t come back.

“Things were going really well,” he recalled.

“For me, Ulster is my home, it’s where my heart is and where I always wanted to go to. We’ve got everything.

“Unfortunately we don’t have the silverware. We don’t have the full trophy cabinet.

“That’s a regret. I don’t want to finish having not won anything in over a decade with Ulster.

“We keep saying, ‘Yeah, this is our year’ over and over again, and there’s nothing more frustrating.

“But all we can do is get off to a good start in the league.

“Someone like Jonno Gibbes (left) coming in provides a real hard edge. That will definitely help us.” Change had to come at the end of yet another underwhelming season.

Gibbes, the former Leinster and Clermont forwards coach, arrived with a burgeoning reptuation to aid Les Kiss. Dwayne Peel is another key coaching addition.

Out went Neil Doak and Allan Clarke.

“Clarkey and Doaky are two coaches who are massively respected in Ulster. When the players heard that they were leaving there was a sense of disappointment,” said Bowe.

“But it wasn’t hard to see that Ulster weren’t playing very well and that something needed to change.

“They’re trying to develop a new gameplan, trying to play a lot more rugby and a new structure.

“It’s a little bit different to what we’ve been doing over the past couple of seasons.”

Bowe - playing again after being out for a long time with injury insists the desire to win more silverware before he retires drove him on during his rehab.

“It would’ve killed me if I wasn’t there and we went on and won something,” said Bowe.

“To play is a great experience, but you’re a professional athlete and want to be part of winning teams. It’s something I want to do with Ulster.”