INTERVIEW TOM COURT: GERRY THORNLEYtalks to the versatile Ulster prop who, buoyed by the province's Heineken Cup run, is now focused on Ireland's Six Nations ambitions

IT MAKES for a considerable change for the Ulster contingent to know they have a Heineken Cup quarter-final to look forward to whereas the Munster players don’t. In fact, it’s an about-turn on each of the last dozen campaigns, long before Tom Court or most of the squad were ever involved. For this generation then, it’s a first.

“It hasn’t happened for a while I guess but it’s hard to get too cocky or anything,” said Court with a smile yesterday.

“I mean those boys have done it for the previous 11 or 12 years. It’s nice that the shoe is on the other foot but they’ll probably go on and win the Amlin now. You can’t get too ahead of yourself but it’s just nice to be winning.

“It’s my fifth season now, for me it was just a struggle to get into the team to start with and then we just built and built. They (the Ulster players) are the guys you are with day in and day out, season on season, so to go from where we were when I first came over to where we are now is brilliant and it really makes you happy and feel like we are really going places and moving along.”

When he first came into the Irish set-up three seasons ago, Court was a somewhat shy and sheepish member of the Grand Slam squad, who only played 25 minutes of the second game, the 38-9 win over Italy in Rome, and five minutes of the final game in Cardiff.

He has mixed feelings about his ability to play loosehead or tighthead. It helped him break into the squad as cover on the bench, but is possibly not helping him to push on. Nine of his 13 caps have been off the bench, and though he started against Samoa (at loosehead) and New Zealand (tighthead) last November, he’d clearly love an extended run at one position. Asked whether he saw himself in competition with Cian Healy or Mike Ross, he quipped: “When I work that out I’ll let you know”.

“It makes it difficult when you are swapping from one side to another in a match or from one side or another from game to game. And even though a lot of it looks very similar, you’re sort of trying to do two very different things. At tighthead you’re trying to keep the guy down and at loosehead you’re trying to keep the guy up and really get your weight across.”

“You’re using different feet, you’re using different arms,” he added.

“You know the smaller, technical difficulties tend to play a massive role, especially when you get to the higher levels, Heineken Cup especially, and leading into the internationals, you can’t afford to be going in and just expecting to manage to get your head in there and to push, that you’re going to be okay. That’s not the case. There are a lot of good scrummaging teams coming up in this Six Nations so you can’t afford to be just throwing yourself in there and hoping for the best.”

First up, the team he made his Test debut against, away. And whatever else the Azzurri can do, they know how to scrum.

“Obviously they rate themselves throughout the forwards and it’s an old school, sort of macho-istic pack where they really sort of back themselves in the scrum and in the maul and up front. (Martin) Castro (Giovanni) is always going to be a very difficult task whoever he has alongside him in the scrum and they have big secondrows to jam him in there, so obviously they’re going to be one of the most difficult frontrows in the Six Nations.

“It’s not something you’re going to be able to just go in and feel your way through. If you’re not off the mark from the start they’re going to make you pay for it and you’ll be getting marched backwards at a rate of knots.”

The scrums have come under particularly scrutiny this season, not least for the way referees apply the “crouch, touch, pause, engage” protocol. “The funny thing is that if you look at the last two rounds of the Heineken Cup, I think there have been certain games where there have been very few collapsed scrums and the refs have handled them very well, and there have been other games that have been absolute nightmares.”

Court cites the “fantastic job” which Christophe Berdos oversaw last Saturday against Aironi and added that “shortening the pause to engage part” is particularly important given the frontrows are straining at the leash.

If his public utterances are anything to go by, Court has come out of his shell. He wasn’t too thrilled however with his own form leading into the final two Heineken Cup rounds.

“I’m still obviously nowhere near where I need to be. Ideally you want to be playing well enough that you’re really confident that when you’re going in you’re going to be trying to hold on to one of the jerseys come next week. I feel that I’ve probably upped it a bit and the motivation has been a bit higher. I was a bit crooked there for the Bath games. Yea, look, I am happy with how the last two fixtures have gone but I’m still a long way off where I want to be, to be honest.”

Having turned 30, this late developing prop believes there is plenty more to come, both from himself and the team. “I’d love to be in the team for the five fixtures and to get a starting berth in a couple of them would be fantastic but I think looking too far past that would probably be a little bit ambitious, especially with the competition there is now from the guys down south,” said Court, clearly mindful of the rapid strides being made by Mike Ross in recent months.

“Collectively not only everyone wants to win the Six Nations but they believe they can win the Six Nations as well. Last year, barring the last game against Scotland, was still a fairly productive campaign but this year we want to pick up some of the standard leading on from November where we finished fairly strongly. The boys are really looking to get a bit of revenge from last year and come back strongly this season.”