Trimblebanks on Ravenhill factor

IRELAND winger Andrew Trimble is under no illusions as to Ulster’s task this afternoon when they face French giants Clermont Auvergne in their opening Heineken Cup gambit at Ravenhill (3.40).

Trimble features in an unchanged line-up, with the only changes being on the bench where Willie Faloon and Declan Fitzpatrick are added in place of Robbie Diack and Adam Macklin.

Trimble, who is now in the best form of his life, says the obvious when he looks to the Ravenhill factor to bear fruit.

“It’s extremely important that we get off on the right footing this evening,” said Trimble. “We have won our last eight Heineken Cup matches at home and have gone very well against French teams in particular. But that is because we do our homework, work hard on what to expect and churn out a big performance on the day.

“There has been a different attitude in the build up to the game. It is really serious stuff. In a way, it has been a strange week as we had boys from the World Cup coming straight in, then the big build-up. The highs and lows of the World Cup, a brief break then all of a sudden you are facing one of the crack teams in Europe .

“It was good to get a win last week in the run-up to this week, but there is nothing like playing in the Heineken Cup at Ravenhill.

“Saturday afternoon is usually a big European Cup day in Belfast and it is not only the crowd, but the players are now really excited about playing against Clermont. It doesn’t really get any bigger.

“We see it as a massive opportunity to claim another big scalp and get our pool campaign off to the perfect start. I certainly don’t thing that Brian (McLaughlin) or Johann (Muller) will need to say much to get us fired up. This week has more or less looked after itself.

“But we realise, Clermont are coming with a massive reputation and a squad that is awash with internationals. That adds up to a class side and we will have to raise our intensity to match them or go beyond that.

“But you don’t play the match on a bit of paper and we are confident in our own ability. We want to better last season where we reached the quarter-final stage and it all starts this afternoon.”

Meanwhile, Ireland hooker Rory Best, who played his first game since the World Cup in the win over Connacht last week, believes that Ulster must put away their chances.

“Last week was a scrappy game, but the good thing for us ahead of next week was to get a win,” said Best. “A lot of aspects to the game we will not be happy with, but the important thing is we have stopped that four-game losing streak and we have got the win. It is onwards and upwards.

“Connacht put up a good defensive display and you cannot under estimate how difficult it is to breach them. You can beat that Clermont will be even harder. “Having said that we created a lot of opportunities last week but failed to nail the score. We have to take a long hard look at our individual errors as there will be fewer chances this afternoon, so we much take them when they come.”