Ulster's Rory Best says no soft touches in Champions Cup groups

Ulster’s experienced skipper Rory Best knows the task that lies ahead of his team when they travel to face French side Oyonnax on Saturday in their Champions Cup opener.

Oyonnax, who finished sixth in the Top 14 last season, may be seen as the minnows of Pool 1, but Best who has over a decade of experience in Europe acknowledges that the competition has been getting stronger and that there are no easy routes through to the knock-out stages anymore.

“It’s not going to be easy,” said Best. “When you look at last year’s group and the groups right across the board and you remove the so-called four worst teams in the competition, everything is getting a lot tougher.

“You look at our group, and everyone talks about how tough all the groups are, and you say would you really want to swap say, to Leinster’s group? Would they want to swap for our group, probably not. That’s just the way it is. It’s a tough draw. What the competition aims for is that it is going to be very tough to get to the quarter-finals. So it’s down to how you play, not how lucky you are in the draw.

“Everyone is saying that you have to win your first game and pick up points away from home. That puts a bit of pressure on us with Oyonnax first up. We have studied them long and hard and we know they are a very good side but I believe we have the firepower to beat them in France.

“It’s not win or bust now, we have to realise that it is such an intense competition and you need to give the first game everything you got, then the next one is the same, then the next one after that. You don’t get a second chance in this competition, we just have to go to Oyonnax and win.

“It’s going to be a big day for them, first game in Europe at home, and the danger for us is that we take our eye of the ball a little. We just got to be precise to try to take their fire and make it a rugby match,” said Best who believes their 3G pitch will suit the needs of Ulster.

“I think we have done reasonably well on 3G pitches. You look at Cardiff last year where we played really well. I suppose we have an advantage over some teams in that we have our own 3G pitch at the back so it’s not going to be a complete shock. Obviously we do most of our pitch sessions on the full size pitch but we do most of our Monday sessions on the 3G.

“So for us, we like to play with a bit of pace and tempo and I think a 3G pitch suits us and if the weather forecast holds it will be a reasonable day there, and hopefully we can get a bit of pace into our game,” explained Best who was glad to get into the action following the World Cup even though his debut this season was interrupted by a yellow card.

“Of course it was great to be back, especially now that the World Cup is finally finished. When you come home after the quarter-finals, the semi-finals are on, the final is on, and you still want to be there. Now that it’s over and had a few weeks off, it’s great to be back having a bit of time at home and training with the guys that you are with week in, week out and even some of them for the last 12 years.

It was good to get 30 minutes last week, albeit 10 on, 10 off! It was exciting, especially now over the last 18 months or so with Neil Doak, and now Les Kiss, that the bench should make an impact and continuing on as the guy you replaced but coming on for that 15-20 minutes or so to lift the game and get a big impact. Getting a yellow card was hugely frustrating for me at the time, because we are trying to set discipline as a rock this season and build a lot of our game on. But being away from home and being involved with the squad that got the first away win of the season was good. That result set us up nicely for Saturday in France,” said Best who believes new Director of Rugby Les Kiss will make a big impact.

“It’s great to have Les with us. When you look at the coaching set-up we have, coaches that have played here and know what Ulster is all about. So following on from that, we now have experience from the other side of the world, so we have a good mix and Les will gel things together.

“He is a very astute guy, knows what way things work, very intelligent and he will organise everyone. You talk about work ethic from the top down, you will not fault the amount of hours he will put in, and he expects all the coaches to do the same. He will reward those who do put in the effort, and those who don’t he expects to up their game. The standards he expects is international standards and if you can get anywhere near that as a club side you will always be there or thereabouts in the final shake-up.”