UR-2021.22-Programme-Lions

Mike Lowry
At only 23, Mike Lowry is set to make his
50th appearance for the province if called
upon on Friday evening.
You’re approaching your 50th appearance
for Ulster! How does that feel?
where we want to get to. Yes, we’re happy
with what we’ve done so far but we know
where we want to reach. We still have a bit
of work to do but if you said at the start
of the season that we’d be three from three
and 15 points on the board, we’d take it!
50 50
50 50
50 50
Full Back
20/08/1998
170cm
76kg
49
It’s an absolute honour. It’s flown in from my
first cap and now coming up to 50. I played
a lot of rugby last year which definitely
helped but I didn’t think I was close to
that number until I checked recently. It’s a
pleasure and an honour to have reached 50
caps for my province.
You’re part of the leadership group within
the squad – can you tell us a little about
that and as a young player, how valuable is
it to you and your development to be part
of that group?
Yeah, I feel like I have a massive role to play
being in the leadership group and the role
I have as an outside half, you need to be a
bit of a leader on and off the pitch. Because
we have such a young cluster of players
coming through, I felt like I was one of the
leaders of that young group. I would help
those younger ones coming through while
also being the connection between the
older guys and the younger guys. I felt I
wanted to be part of that leadership group.
Dan had a conversation with the existing
leadership group and one of the players
in that group asked if I wanted to be a
part of it as a younger player. I think they
thought it would be good to have me in
there going forward. It helps to relay things
to the younger lads or if we have a strategy
meeting about a game coming up, being
one of those voices that people can listen
to. If anyone needs a bit of help, I can do my
best to do that.
How have you found the start to Ulster’s
season so far?
We’ve got full points since the start of the
season; we’re three from three but we feel
our best rugby is yet to be played. There are
signs there but I think we’re still not exactly
What can you take from the game against
Benetton into this week ahead of the
Emirates Lions?
We had a review of the Benetton game and
we need to be better in certain areas like
holding onto the ball better. Hopefully we can
show that on Friday night here against the
Emirates Lions. We usually take things from
the review of the game before to bring into
the next week and improve on certain areas.
Does not having played Emirates Lions
before change your preparations at all?
It’s definitely different if you haven’t played
against a certain player before. You can do
all the video analysis you like in a build-up
to a match, but it is different. You don’t
know exactly what they’re going to do.
It’s definitely a challenge but by the same
measure, so will they, which is a positive.
They have a massive pack with big strong
lads as well as fast backs, so they have a
mixture of threats. If we can speed the
game and play our sort of game rather than
playing into theirs, it will hopefully lead to
a good performance and ultimately, a win.
How much are you enjoying having
supporters back at Kingspan Stadium?
It’s been brilliant. In our first game against
Glasgow Warriors, we walked around the
pitch after the game for the first time in
such a long time, applauding the crowd. It
was such a special feeling seeing friends
and family in the stands again. It makes
such a difference, and a difference for
the opposition as well! We’ve loved every
minute of having fans back and being able
to see your best mates in the crowd again.
11