Pienaar getting Ulster going

ULSTER fly-half Ian Humphreys is in many ways like the weather this season – one day blowing hot, the next offering a cold front.

Hopefully in the more agreeable climatic conditions in Monza, Humphreys will warm to his task and spark Ulster to victory over Aironi in their reverse Heineken Cup tie early this afternoon.

After a slight loss of confidence there was a glint of the old Humphreys last week in Ulster’s five-pointer against the Italian side at Ravenhill. That, some say, was in no small way down to his link-up with the brilliant Springbok scrum-half Ruan Pienaar.

Paul Marshall was a revelation at number nine while Pienaar was recovering from a hamstring tear but Humphreys’s personal form dipped, mainly from a lack of confidence. With the excellent Pienaar giving a typical masterclass at the base of the scrum, Humphreys had that extra bit of time to conduct proceedings last week.

“Ruan came in last week with basically one game since last year’s (Magners) semi-final and he was right up there and did not show that he was off the pace,” said Humphreys who features in an Ulster side again that shows one change from last week with Ireland’s Tom Court replacing Paddy McAllister at loose-head.

“Both Paul [Marshall] and Ruan are tremendous. Marshy did really well in the games against Clermont and Leicester and last week you saw what a class act Ruan is.

“We are very lucky and I think that it is a case of throughout the squad we have strength in depth everywhere and it is credit to the coaches and the people behind the scenes that we can produce a squad that can compete even with a few injuries.

“What we did last week got us the five tries so you don’t want to change too much but they will have had a look at the video and will know what we are trying to do.

“It will be a different team we are playing this week, they’ll bring in a few more forwards and a bit more class and experience and also they’re at home so they will be a lot more physical and fired up and it will definitely be a more difficult game. But we may have a few things up our sleeve.

“There is also a balance of not showing your hand too much in the first game and you try and hold something back for this week.

“We had a lot of possession last Friday but I can’t imagine us getting that much this week. The key is that we are more clinical this week because we’ll maybe only have four or five chances in the game and we have to take all of them.

“Yes, we probably need a bonus point to help us in our bid to qualify out of Pool 4, but we first must focus on winning the game.

“I don’t think there have been many bonus points throughout the other groups so 19 or 20 points could get you through as one of the best runners up.

“We have had a couple of wins there but they always have a big game in them, look at last year when they turned over Biarritz so we are under no illusions at all, we know we’re not going over there for them to hand us five points.”