{"id":90217,"date":"2025-08-23T14:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T14:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/90217\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T14:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T14:50:09","slug":"united-rugby-championship-welsh-rugby-in-a-tricky-situation-says-ulster-centre-stuart-mccloskey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/90217\/","title":{"rendered":"United Rugby Championship: Welsh rugby in a ‘tricky situation’ says Ulster centre Stuart McCloskey"},"content":{"rendered":"

A final decision is expected in October and the rugby world will be watching with interest.<\/p>\n

However, McCloskey does not believe it might lead to a rethink in Ireland, where international and club rugby is flourishing.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the recent success of Leinster has created a gap between them and other Irish provinces. In last season’s 16-club URC (United Rugby Championship), Ulster finished in 14th place, with Leinster in first place with twice as many points.<\/p>\n

McCloskey is hopeful that Ulster will gain ground in the forthcoming United Rugby Championship (URC) season, which begins at the end of September.<\/p>\n

“I would expect us to hopefully make the play-offs and hopefully make a bit of a run in the (European) Challenge Cup,” he said.<\/p>\n

For the first time, Ulster have not qualified for the main European tournament, the Champions Cup.<\/p>\n

On personal level, McCloskey, 33, is hoping to keep playing for Ireland, after featuring on their recent summer tour.<\/p>\n

He scored in the record-breaking win over Portugal<\/a> and is keen to wear the green jersey again soon.<\/p>\n

“I’d love to get a good run, injury-free. I’d love to play for Ireland again \u2026 I’d hopefully love to push towards the next World Cup. It’s only less than two years away now, and I still feel my body’s in great shape.”<\/p>\n

Another player hoping to avoid more injuries is Ulster hooker Tom Stewart.<\/p>\n

Speaking at an open training session in Coleraine, watched by hundreds of local rugby fans, he expressed optimism about the future.<\/p>\n

He said: “It was a tough enough season for players, staff and supporters last year so the big thing is building that energy back around Ulster rugby, getting the fans back on side, getting a bit of buzz around the changing room.”<\/p>\n

Like McCloskey, 24-year-old Stewart played for Ireland during the summer.<\/p>\n

For both players, their focus is now firmly on Ulster. They kick off the United Rugby Championship season with a home game against the Dragons on Friday 26 September.<\/p>\n

It will be Ulster’s first competitive game at their newly named ground, the Affidea Stadium<\/a> in Belfast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A final decision is expected in October and the rugby world will be watching with interest. However, McCloskey…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-90217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}