Warwick’s driving ambition

In his former life, working at his father’s engineering company in Ballymena, Ulster front-row forward Andrew Warwick drove two-ton trucks around the country.

A fully-qualified HGV licence holder, the 23-year-old now just wants to drive scrums.

The angular prop, who plans to concentrate playing at loose-head this season after freelancing along the front row with his home town club Ballymena, is keen to show what he is made of when the new Guinness Pro12 League rolls out this weekend, with a difficult trip to the Scarlets.

Warwick starts with the number one jersey and although still wet behind the ears as far as front-row experience is concerned, he’s desperate to keep it.

His season started impressively last week, when he faced Ireland prop Mike Ross. Warwick found the experience pleasing and learned a few tricks of the trade.

“Things have been going well so far, but there is plenty of competition in the front row for a place, with three loose-heads chasing that spot and five at tight-head,” said Warwick, who made his Ulster debut in the defeat by Cardiff at the tail end of last season. “I felt good last week in the scrums against Leinster, and it was a good experience playing against Mike Ross. He is one of the best, but I think we went really well against their front row, it was also a little learning curve for me.

“I’m certainly more comfortable playing loose head, and, hopefully, I will be able to push on and challenge for that starting spot. At scrum time you never, ever, stop learning. Every time you go out there, you learn something, and with all the competition, it is even better,” said Warwick.

Warwick says the influence and international experience of Les Kiss has been a huge help.

“It’s brilliant with Les. Every day we know what is expected of us, we know before training what we are going to do and everything is so, so precise. Life with Ulster is certainly a bigger step up from the All-Ireland League than I envisaged. But it has been a brilliant experience,” said Warwick, who had former Ireland and Ulster prop Bryan Young helping him at Ballymena, and whose personal goals are to keep learning and getting that starting place previously occupied by Tom Court.

“It’s all about competing for that number one jersey and that is my main focus. I learned an awful lot from Tom last season and hopefully things will pay off for me. It will be competitive with Callum Black and Ruaidhrí Murphy all vying for the jersey.”