Brady ready to impress in Ulster’s battle of Brussels
It’s a massive game for the northern province, who bid to follow up last week’s superlative 23-13 victory over the Parisians and move into prime position in Pool 4.
They make four personnel changes and one positional switch for the trip.
Skipper Paddy Wallace returns to the starting line-up after making a swifter-than-expected recovery from an ankle injury. He is paired in the centre with Andrew Trimble who moves inside with Fijian flyer Timoci Nagusa on the left wing. Up front, open-side Willie Faloon is preferred to David Pollock, with Springbok BJ Botha returning at tight-head.
Former Ireland U21 skipper Brady hopes his current form will bring him to the attention of Kidney and his management team, particularly with concerns over Jerry Flannery, and with Rory Best sidelined for the season.
“I’m only thinking of Ulster at present, anything else would be a massive bonus,” he admitted.
“There were a lot of things that went well for us in our performance last week, Now we hope to replicate that.
“But they will be bent on revenge and will be a lot smarter this time than they were last week.
“Last week we superbly executed our game plan and matched them physically and had them rattled.
“In effect that stopped them from playing the rugby we know they can play, while it allowed us to perform some really good stuff. We must try and do it all over again. That’s our objective.”
After last week’s gouging allegations, is Brady expecting some fallout this weekend?
“It’s obviously hard to gauge what way any game is going to go until you are in it, and we are simply focused on playing our game. What they do is up to them. But psychologically we think we have the edge. They were a bit shocked by last week. But it hurt them, and even though they are not at their home ground, they will be intent in putting matters right. We will just have to play the way the way we did last week and get that all-important away win.”
Ulster coach Brian McLaughlin is under no illusions about the difficulty of today’s mission.
“We’ve got to match whatever Stade throw at us. If we don’t do that, if we don’t compete, we know they will try and intimidate us off the park, but we wouldn’t let that happen.
“To us it’s just another away match,” said McLaughlin.
“We know what to expect and hopefully we’ll take every opportunity we are given.
“At the moment we’re looking quite good from a player point of view. Now it’s a matter of us making sure we have an attitude that’s going to enable us to go across there and perform.
“We have trained well this week and are happy with where we are. We are ready to walk onto the field in Brussels. The team we’ve named is one that’s covering every eventuality. We are happy to be going there and having the opportunity to still be in a position to qualify from our pool.”
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