Muller: Last week’s defeat will motivate us

Ulster’s South African inspiration Johann Muller has some unfinished business before he heads back to Mossil Bay on the Eastern Cape in June to work on the family farm.

Well aware Ulster were taken out by the roots by Saracens last season at the same stage at Twickenham, the big second row said he was hurt and that, having spent four years at Ulster, wants something tangible to take away with him.

However, the Ulster skipper says there is a massive difference between the squad then and now.

“To me the difference is very simple,” stated Muller. “Last season we had a lot of players coming back from injury. Personally, I had a horror show with injuries and, like a lot of other guys, I was completely under-cooked for that game, and not ready for that type of cup challenge.

“This season we have been fairly lucky injury-wise, everybody has had games and we are very comfortable where we are as a team and what we want to achieve.

“We have been patchy every now and again, like last week’s defeat in Cardiff. But we still have only lost one game since Christmas which is not a bad thing at all. Every Heineken Cup game we have played, we have managed to pull a really good performance out of the fire and we don’t expect anything less this weekend.

“To be honest, last week’s defeat against the Blues should turn out to be a very good thing. I think sometimes you play poorly and win and hope little things get fixed themselves. Then you get a big shock like last week and you realise there are so many things to consider between winning and losing. That defeat was a tremendous wake-up for everyone.

“I suspect all our minds were on this week already, which was wrong, but you can understand why. But that defeat will help us win this week,” said Muller who knows only too well that being top seeds means absolutely nothing.

“We haven’t achieved anything yet,” explained Muller. “We finished top of our pool and top of the log but a lot of great teams in the history of this tournament have been in exactly the same situation as we are in now and they’ve slipped up in the quarter or semi-finals. There’s a huge amount of work left for us to do if we want to achieve something great,” said Muller.

“I just might agree with people who say that Saracens are favourites. Let them be favourites, I don’t mind.

“They taught us rugby lesson 12 months ago, and we took it on the chin. But they are top of the English League by a good margin, they are beating everyone, so yes, maybe they warrant to be favourites.

“But rugby is a funny old game and seven days is a long time in this sport. We intend to do our talking on the pitch. We can say all the right things, but at the end of the day its what you do on the pitch.”