You’re on the pitch to score tries, says Ulster star

BY rights Andrew Trimble should have spent the best part of yesterday evening and last night bouncing off the walls of Ireland’s Dalkey Hotel in sheer delight at his selection for Sunday’s Six Nations championship game with Wales.

There was one snag. The man he will replace on the wing at the weekend is Tommy Bowe. That’s Tommy Bowe, Ulster colleague. Tommy Bowe, close friend, and Tommy Bowe, room-mate.

Whoops. Guess rugby wasn’t mentioned after all then, Andrew?

“No, It’ll probably be something like, ‘bad weather we’re having today’, he jokes.

The hint of a smile briefly flashes across the 21-year-old’s lips but disappears just as suddenly. His disappointment for Bowe is clearly more than a case of convenient crocodile tears for the media.

“It’s just an unfortunate situation, but Tommy and I are good mates and we understand the way it is,” says the Ballymena man. “That’s professional sport and one of us had to be picked. I suppose it’s good that we’re both good mates. It’s a great opportunity (for me). I have a few caps now and the more opportunities you get to play for Ireland the more you want to do it again. I’m looking forward to it.”Bowe’s demotion had been widely flagged. Though he scored in the opening Six Nations win over Italy, he hasn’t been hitting peak form of late, despite a run of seven straight games for Ireland stretching back to the first test in Japan last summer. Even Eddie O’Sullivan said as much yesterday.

With Denis Hickie still deemed to be short of match fitness after his recent return from injury, options on the wings are slightly limited. A strong case could have been made to switch Geordan Murphy to the wing where he has excelled for Leicester this season and reward Girvan Dempsey for the best season of his life with a return to full-back. That said, no-one can argue that Trimble has not merited another look, even if he will feel slightly strange being asked to patrol the tramlines instead of his more familiar, and more preferred, role deep in the midfield.

“I’d rather play at centre,” he admitted openly. “I’ve got more experience there. I would be more comfortable there but, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. You’re on the pitch to score tries. When you’re playing on the wing there’s going to be a lot of guys making breaks and you just have to try and get on the end of those.”

He’s done pretty well at doing just that for Ireland. His first two tries came against Romania just a week after his debut against Australia last November. Another touchdown as a replacement against France a fortnight ago added to his burgeoning reputation as a man who can deliver points. “Every match you grow in confidence and experience and I would like to think that I improve with every game. I want to keep doing that. I want to keep learning from the guys around me and putting it into practice in the matches.”

It’s worth reminding ourselves that his development has been nothing shy of stratospheric this year. It seems incredible to think it was only a jaw injury to Paul Steinmetz last autumn that catapulted him into the Ulster spotlight. He has earned this latest reward by embracing his new experiences rather than being overawed by them.

“With the quality of players around you, you can even learn from the way they train. It’s only a matter of time before you come on and become a better player. I wouldn’t have anticipated having these caps at the start of the year but now the goalposts have moved I want to achieve more and more. You’re never really satisfied.”