Tom Stewart to challenge veteran Rob Herring for hooker supremacy in Ulster

Last week Ulster’s Tom Stewart was explaining how his ambition in Kingspan Stadium over the coming months was to become the first-choice player at hooker. With an eye-catching campaign last season, the 22-year-old capped off a series of impressive performances by scoring a record 16 tries in the United Rugby Championship (URC).

This week, the Cape Town-born Rob Herring was celebrating becoming the most decorated Ulster player. The Irish hooker’s name went into the history books as he took to the field against Munster for his 230th outing. Interesting days ahead for the young gun capped twice and the World Cup and Grand Slam veteran.

The 33-year-old Herring has been with Ulster for over 10 years and arrived in Belfast to see if he could make it as a professional player.

“It’s strange, isn’t it? I was thinking about it during the week. I came over as a young lad chasing my dream to be a pro rugby player,” said Herring. “It’s been a great journey so far. I look back over the years and we’ve had some unbelievable moments, I’ve had some unbelievable team-mates. Belfast is a great place to live.

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“It’s been brilliant, I love playing for this province. I’ve a few more years in me yet hopefully but I’m loving my time at the moment. I didn’t in my wildest dreams think I’d be in this position when I first arrived 11 years ago, yet here we are.”

Herring was behind in the pecking order to Dan Sheehan and Ronan Kelleher at the World Cup in France but started against Romania and was on the bench against Tonga. He was also involved in Ireland’s three warm-up matches in August against Italy, England and Samoa before moving past the Ulster record number that Darren Cave and Andrew Trimble jointly held.

Herring was wearing a personalised jersey on the night, which had been embroidered to honour the occasion. In an emotional moment, his three-year-old daughter Millie presented him with the shirt before the game in the changing room, his wife Nicola also present.

“I think it’s a bit of my mentality. I’m a bit stubborn, I’m competitive. Those attributes have probably kept me on the pitch at times, got me in the team and kept me there. I’ve still a few more years in me and I’ll be stubborn until the end,” said Herring should the talented Stewart think his job would be made easy.

Perfectly timed for the night that was in it, Herring in his first return to domestic action after the World Cup, made the match-defining intervention, producing a huge turnover in the dying seconds as Munster pushed hard on the Ulster line in search of a late equalising try. Far from fearing the challenge from Stewart, though it gives Herring extra motivation to continue.

“I see areas where I can help him and there’s areas where I can learn from him,” he said. “We’ve a good working relationship. We want to challenge each other, push each other on. He’s a young lad, an incredibly talented player and he’s got the right mentality as well.

“He has a big future and part of me sees that I need help him on his journey. But we’re competing. It’s friendly fire but we’ll push each other on and keep getting better.”