Marty Moore making his mark for Ulster

Stuart McCloskey, Luke Marshall and the recipient of the accolade Tom Stewart were at the forefront.

Coach Dan McFarland felt that once his side started to dominate at the scrum that was the key momentum shift in the game, and he name-checked tight head prop Marty Moore, saying: “Marty is one of the top scrummagers around in Ireland.”

Moore has established himself as Ulster’s first choice tight head but missed the final four games of last season due to injury and it was a case of what might have been if he was fit for the narrow semi-final defeat against the Stormers.

After a shaky start in the scrum against Connacht Moore was pleased how the Ulster scrum fronted up.

“It is something you work on but it’s also an experience thing, definitely,” he said.

“There’s been games in the past in years gone by where the team changes things up after the first scrum to try and target me and negate our attacking threat on their ball as well as our own.

“We realised that and had a bit of a chat in between, there were enough scrums to work it out, it’s not a pre-planned thing.

“We’d always have a plan going into a game, but things can change pretty quick. It’s just a chat between us guys in the front row, myself, Tom and Eric, the rest of the guys probably didn’t even know there had been any changes.

“We’ve been a solid set piece at scrum time, but we’re not a team that have punished teams like we have with our maul and line-out work,” he added.

“It’s been a big emphasis since the back end of last season and the start of this season that we have the ability to do that, and we want to use it as a real weapon rather than just a base to launch plays.

“That’s something to get it to the level that our line-out work is at.”

Packing down beside Stewart in the scrum, Moore is perfectly placed to assess the young hooker, who travels to Dublin today to join up with Emerging Ireland.

“Tom’s had a couple of tough years with injuries and I think he probably would have gott a shot at it even younger if it wasn’t for those,” Moore said.

“He’s an exciting prospect, he’s very powerful, very fast as we saw the other night when he broke off (the maul).

“Not a lot of other hookers can do that, set piece was really solid as well which, for a young guy, is always the hardest aspect.

“It’s not like he got dropped in at the deep end, he’s been around us long enough training and in match day squads.”

“He’s travelled so much with us as a reserve that he’s probably more comfortable in the environment than many outside the group would realise,” he added.

“There’s probably a lot in that as well, that he hasn’t just come from school or the Academy and not been alongside the team

“He’s been building towards this for a while, you do try and look out for guy, but I don’t think he needs too much help.”