‘It’s only starting’: Richie Murphy committed to driving Ulster on to new level

Tall timber, the indigenous variety. Cormac Izuchukwu, Joe Hopes and Jude Postlethwaite climb in and out of cars. The imported kind. Ben Donnell, Irish-qualified, who recently arrived from Cardiff, can play either backrow or secondrow. Watching on, it’s a human version of a furling and unfurling process.

For a fleeting moment the land of Brobdingnag from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels springs to mind rather than the staff car park at the Affidea Stadium in Belfast. Relating the encounters to Ulster head coach Richie Murphy soon after, a chuckle escapes as he lists the heights and weights of his first-choice backline.