Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
TIMONEY: IMPROVE OR ELSE..
Ulster’s Young Player of the Year knows only better will do
NICK Timoney enjoyed a breakthrough year last season but accepts he’ll have to take his game to another level to get regular gametime with Ulster this campaign.
The dynamic Dubliner, who joined the province’s Academy in 2015, was rewarded with a senior contract in February and named Ulster’s young player of the year in May.
It has been a meteoric rise for the 23-year-old who made his Ulster debut 16 months ago – but he knows things are only going to get tougher at the Kingspan Stadium.
With Marcell Coetzee fit and firing again and summer signing Jordi Murphy poised to make his debut against Edinburgh on Friday, back row competition will be stiff.
Add in Chris Henry, Sean Reidy and Jean Deysel, who is back in training after recovering from a knee injury, and Dan Mcfarland has a wealth of options at flanker and No8.
“There’s incredible competition in the back row this year,” said Timoney. “For me personally, I know I’ll have to play significantly better than I did last season to get a game.
“At my age you should be improving noticeably year on year. If I stay at the same level as last year, I see that as pretty much going backwards.
“Jordi is a great addition and hopefully I’ll get to play with him a bit this year.”
Timoney suspects the barnstorming impact he made last season “surpassed what most people expected”.
He said: “If you’d told me how much I’d play and the opportunities I got in the Champions Cup and getting to start as much as I did, I would have been amazed. It has been an incredible year, but I must keep pushing on.”
Timoney is relishing the prospect of playing a faster brand of rugby under Mcfarland who got his reign off to a last gasp winning start at the weekend.
“We just want to play fast this season, whether it’s off-load or run,” said Timoney. “I like to play with a bit of pace, so it certainly suits my type of game.
“It was a big bonus to get the win, but there’s still a lot of room for improvement in our performance. We could have won more convincingly.
“The breakdown is a big area for us to focus on against Edinburgh, getting quicker ball and not letting them disrupt our attack.
ZKYLE Mccall had elbow surgery yesterday to repair a torn tendon sustained in training last week and will be sidelined for 12 weeks.