John Cooney has been round the block long enough to know that one swallow doesn’t make a summer.
After guiding Ulster to a bonus-point win over rivals Connacht on Saturday night, Cooney is refusing to get carried away. Instead, the all-action scrum-half is focusing on the learnings that he and his teammates must take from the victory.
After Connacht clawed their way back to tie the contest at 24-all midway through the second half, many observers felt that it was just a matter of time before the more experienced visitors would pull away for the win.
But a penalty from Player of the Match Cooney with just nine minutes remaining gave Ulster the oxygen they needed to finish the game strongly and Nick Timoney’s try five-minutes later capped off a stunning five-try win.
“I found it frustrating out there, maybe as an older player,” said Cooney despite the nature of the win.
“We need to learn quicker. This is a tough league and if we are going to finish top eight come end of the season, I think we need to realise, as they will (the younger players), that mistakes in big games can matter really bad.”
Cooney was particularly irate about how Connacht were allowed to leave Belfast with two bonus points.
With an eight-point lead and the clock in the red, a needless penalty gave Connacht the perfect opportunity to grab another bonus-point. And fly-half Josh Ioane duly accepted the invitation to convert the penalty to give Connacht two match points.
It’s match moments like this where Cooney feels that Ulster’s kids must learn from if they are going to challenge for a play-off spot come the end of the season.
“I’ve learnt it the hard way.”
“You make mistakes, you try and react and implement something better and try and chase the game. So, I think it’s a steep learning curve for some young fellas in this team.
“You might drop the ball in training and you end up 40 metres back and it doesn’t really matter. But in a game, it can be the difference between winning and losing. And I’ve been on the other side of that a lot of times.
“The big moments, we just want to keep winning them. And I kept screaming throughout the game, ‘Let’s go and win the next one’, because it never really works out as you plan.”
With a 100 per cent return from their two-home games, Ulster will be big favourites to see off the Ospreys on Friday evening at Ravenhill. But if Ulster are to be taken seriously as title challengers, wins on the road are a must.
“We love playing here (Ravenhill). It’s a lot easier playing at home and if we want to kick-on and do well in this league, it’s about our away form.
“So, when we go to Cardiff in a couple of weeks we need to build on these performances because there’s no point in just winning our home ones. We got to turn up abroad as well.”
