Ulster Rugby: Wilson ready for ‘crunch time’ on and off pitch

Preparing to scrum against Springbok World Cup winners by day, polishing off chapters of his dissertation by night. Scott Wilson’s breakthrough season at Ulster has involved something of a balancing act.

When the province brought in three tighthead props ahead of last summer’s pre-season training – James French, Greg McGrath and Ben Griffin all arrived on deals of varying lengths, the latter pair having since departed – it primarily spoke to the need to fill the void left by Jeff Tomanga-Allen’s exit and the unavailability of Marty Moore and Tom O’Toole through the early weeks of the season.

In addition, however, the moves hardly augured well for Wilson’s prospects of being heavily involved in the senior set-up.

Yet the 21-year-old has featured consistently for both departed head coach Dan McFarland and now his interim replacement Richie Murphy.

This month he had his academy contract upgraded to a development deal and the youngster has been as surprised as anyone with his level of involvement.

“I probably started the year with the goal of getting one cap,” Wilson said.

To date, he has turned out 11 times this year, including a second start in the United Rugby Championship (URC) win against Cardiff last week.

As the season has gone on, the goalposts have moved for Wilson.

He added: “I then bumped [the goal] up to five or six and this is going into number 12.

“I probably didn’t expect to get as many starts either, so just taking it all week by week and day by day and going from there.”