Dewey Begins Training With the Ulster Rugby Squad

Dewey signed for Ulster from Edinburgh in February of this year on a two-year contract but his international commitments with Scotland in the lead up to and during the World Cup period meant that the powerful centre had only made a couple of flying visits to Belfast so far. Nevertheless Rob was looking forward to his first training session when we caught up with him after the introductions had been made and before he took to the pitch.

"It's always going to be hard coming into a team that have already started their training and season without you", Dewey admitted this morning, "but everyone has been really welcoming- I've had a lot of names thrown at me this morning so I'm doing my best to remember everyone!"

With France and his World Cup aspirations firmly behind him Dewey is keen to get stuck in at his new club and accepts that the team, who are currently propping up the bottom of the Magner's League table have a challenge in front of them. "Ulster have had three tough away games in a row that have ended in bad results for them," he said, "but I don't think that reflects their ability or what they can potentially still achieve in Magners League and Heineken Cup."

"With the International players back and the side at full strength again I'm sure the guys will be looking positively going into the next match at home. Hopefully with a good result from Leinster in two weeks time, the momentum will return." Looking forward to the coming season and making his Ulster debut Dewey adds, "hopefully if I'm given the opportunity I can be part of the effort to get the season back on track."

Dewey's World Cup dream ended with Scotland after a narrow 13-19 defeat at the hands of Argentina. Despite the disappointing exit, Scotland impressed in the group stages of the competition and seemed like a different side to the team that conceded three tries and conversions to Italy in the first six minutes of their last Six Nations meeting. "We gave away all three of those tries to Italy to be honest because there were moments when our defense was non existent," he reasons of the defeat.

Given this, it was obviously quite an achievement for the Scots to conquer Italy on their way to a World Cup quarter final. Dewey believes confidence plays a major part in any side's performance, "I think confidence can turn a team around in a short space of time",he says," we went into every game during the World Cup with confidence that we would give it everything we had."

And what about the awkward meeting to follow when he will face fellow Ulster newcomer Carlo Del Fava having ended his and Italy's World Cup dream a mere fortnight ago? "There's certainly no animosity there" Dewey laughs,"I saw Carlo briefly after the match and in fact I bumped into him in Tescos this morning before training started so he was actually the first person I met. He's a very likeable guy and easy to get on with so there's certainly no problems there!"

Tickets for the Ulster v Leinster match on 26th October are now extremely limited as Ravenhill have now SOLD OUTof Promenade as well as Stand tickets for the fixture. Tickets are still available for the Memorial Stand and Terrace.