Heineken Champions Cup: Ulster must ‘bully the bully’ in Sale game – Jeff Toomaga-Allen

Ulster tighthead prop Jeff Toomaga-Allen says the Irish province must aim to “bully the bully” on Saturday when they face a Sale side that embarrassed them 39-0 only six weeks ago.

But former All Blacks player Toomaga-Allen says Ulster must believe that they can match Sale’s physicality.

“You have to meet fire with fire and meet them up front,” he insisted.

“That’s their game plan and their biggest strength as well. Their physicality and we either have to match it and beat it or get beaten.”

Even though Ulster have lost six of their last seven games, including three defeats in Europe, victory over the Sharks on Saturday evening could be enough to earn Dan McFarland’s side a place in the knockout stages of the Heineken Champions Cup.

La Rochelle home game controversially moved

Toomaga-Allen, who earned one full cap for the All Blacks in 2013 before representing them in two non-cap games in 2017 and is now hoping to play for Samoa in this year’s World Cup, says a big home crowd this weekend will help the under-pressure hosts.

It will be the Ulster fans’ first opportunity to see the team in European action on home turf this season after the game against La Rochelle on 17 December had to be controversially moved behind closed doors to Dublin’s Aviva Stadium following freezing conditions that week in Belfast.

“We did mention it today (that it’s first European game this season at the Kingspan Stadium),” said the Wellington-born prop at Ulster’s weekly news conference.

“The boys are really excited to get back playing in front of our home crowd. Just playing footie and having fun. You could feel it in training today. We were just having fun and that’s what it’s about.”

Thirty-two-year-old Toomaga-Allen, who is the most ebullient of characters, joined Ulster last summer following his three-year stint with Wasps after moving to the English Premiership side from the Hurricanes in 2019.

Toomaga-Allen’s time with Wasps saw him bulking up to cope with what he says are the more physical rigours of Northern Hemisphere rugby as opposed to the “faster tempo of Super Rugby”.

“It took me a year to learn the difference, adjust my body weight and learn to run around with the body weight that I had, because I was running around much lighter in Super because I had to be faster.

“That’s all I knew but with the excitement of doing something new, that’s what drew me to overseas as well.”

An ankle ligament injury has restricted the All Blacks cap to only four appearances for Ulster so far but two of those came in Ulster’s most recent games as he, unusually for a prop, played all 80 minutes in the narrow defeat by Benetton before featuring for 70 in last weekend’s heartbreaking last-gasp European loss against La Rochelle.

Marty Moore’s own injury misfortune suffered against Munster on New Year’s Day meant that Toomaga-Allen got his chance and he is determined to hold on to Ulster’s number three jersey, despite the presence of Ireland squad member Tom O’Toole in McFarland’s forwards options.

“I kind of revel in the fact that it’s a special thing to do for a tighthead prop to play 80 minutes,” added the Wellington native.

“And the fact that I did it off five or six weeks out that just justifies the frustration that I went through in terms of all my hard work [to get back].”

But despite the competition for the number three shirt, Toomaga-Allen insists that the tighthead hopefuls are all pushing each other “to be better”.

“There can be quite big competition, an alpha male type vibe but I think here we all help each other grow. I’ve said all the time, the better I am, the better you can be.”

‘Dive in – you’ll love Belfast’

Toomaga-Allen says a recommendation from another former Ulster favourite and ex-All Blacks prop John Afoa convinced him to make Belfast the next stop on his rugby journey.

“He’s a great friend and mentor to me. He helped me through the Premiership and had played here so I got on the phone. He just told me ‘dive in, you’ll love it’.”

Dan McFarland made the initial direct approach to the prop and Toomaga-Allen says the Ulster coach’s “attention to detail” about all aspects of front-row play is something he has never experienced before.

“It can be annoying sometimes I’m not going to lie but it makes you that much better because he’s trying to get the best out of you. Not annoying in the fact he’s annoying, more you go ‘duh….I should be doing that’.

“I just thought what a great opportunity to learn off a specific coach.

“For me, moving here in particular too, I never want to be stale. I never want to stop learning. I’ve been in this game for 10-plus years now at a professional level and you can’t stop wanting to learn. Because otherwise you don’t grow.”