IT’S 200 UP FOR PAUL THE LOYAL

PAUL MARSHALL insists he’s never wanted to leave Ulster despite rarely being the first choice scrum-half.

It’s a credit to his commitment that he could become just the fifth player to make a 200th appearance in tonight’s clash with Treviso.

Rather fittingly, he starts the game on the bench – from where he’s earned the majority of his appearances.

But he believes hard graft more than natural talent is what’s got him to this point – even if playing second fiddle to Isaac Boss, then Ruan Pienaar and John Cooney does not sit well with him.

Marshall said: “It’s not something you accept, I’m never happy on the bench.

“I’m just as ambitious as ever. I want to play every week but the thing that has always stuck in my mind is would I be as passionate about another club?

“Any time there’s been an opportunity to look away for certain reasons – a few years back when I maybe could have, when Ruan was here – I was still on the edge of the Irish set-up and I didn’t want to go away and miss out on that.

“My dream was to play for Ulster and Ireland, not to play rugby for X, Y, or Z. Unfortunately, in terms of the Ireland set-up nothing ever came of that but I think if I’d gone away at that stage I probably would have been really disappointed.

“If I wasn’t enjoying it here, if I couldn’t offer this organisation anything more, then maybe I would have looked to move on. I still get as much enjoyment out of it as I ever have done.”

Marshall is glad his 200th cap will come in front of the home crowd as his 100th and 150th were both away.

He will join Roger Wilson, Andrew Trimble, Robbie Diack and Rory Best in reaching the milestone – quite a fear for a player who is humble about his worth.

He added: “I’m not the most talented player, there’s a lot of guys who are better and I know that. Even at school I knew that. I knew then that if I wanted to be involved then I had to work as hard as I could.”

Ballynahinch flanker Aaron Hall gets a debut while fellow rookies Matthew Dalton and Greg Jones are on the bench.