Murphy on Ulster progress, Ward future and Toulouse
- Published
Ulster open their Investec Champions Cup campaign with a daunting trip to holders and six-time champions Toulouse on Sunday (15:15 GMT).
On Tuesday, Ulster head coach Richie Murphy spoke to reporters. Here's a breakdown of some of what he spoke about.
On Ulster's progress against his expectations:
"It's probably slightly below where we wanted to be. We've had a tough run of games as well, we've played the top three teams in the league at the moment and been in South Africa in the Highveld.
"Between the Cardiff and Leinster games, we probably should be at least one better but we're a young side and we're going to have ups and downs."
On facing a star-studded Toulouse:
"Excitement? Maybe. Fear? Probably a little bit. You look at their team, they're two or three deep international wise in nearly every position.
"But there are things in their team that you look at and think there are opportunities. It's whether you can be good enough to take that."
On Zac Ward's fitness and future:
"Zac is back fit. He has passed all the return to play protocols for this weekend. Zac is progressing well, obviously he had never played on the wing before coming in with us. Coming in from the Sevens he has shown some really good growth over the last number of weeks.
"Zac is on an IRFU contract at the moment. We are in conversations with him about going forward from here."
"We're positive about his progress and over the next number of weeks we might see him out there in a white jersey."
On whether Ulster need a 'medical joker' to solve back-three injury problems:
"No, not at the moment. We've brought Rob Lyttle [former Ulster wing] back in for a couple of weeks. We'll see how that progresses. We also have a few academy players who we want to try and bring through. Between them, we're actually OK.
"If someone else were to get injured, that could become an issue then."
On Ulster's Irish internationals being in the mix for Sunday:
"The internationals all returned to training yesterday (Monday). They obviously haven't been with us for five weeks. Cormac Izuchukwu, Iain Henderson, Rob Herring, Tom O'Toole and Stuart McCloskey have all returned from international camp.