RABODIRECT PRO 12:THE IRFU Player Welfare Programme has some interesting side effects. By its nature, affording players adequate holidays and pre-season while also rationing their game time has to ensure against burn-out and injury, even if protecting a player from his own instincts can also heighten his sense of insecurity.

This is all the more so when relatively-seasoned internationals see some young hot shots take their places and do a damn fine job of it. Coming on the heels of one of the most crushing experiences of his career, Andrew Trimble enjoyed his four-week holidays in Croatia and Portugal before six weeks of pre-season whereupon, itching for a return, he watched the young Ulster tyros follow up the province’s first win in France (in Bayonne), the pre-season draw against Leicester and win over Newcastle with a Pro 12 win over Glasgow.

By the time he was introduced in the 54th minute away to the Ospreys last Saturday in the Liberty Stadium after a seventh week’s training, and with Ulster trailing 13-3, Trimble had never felt better physically.

“But I felt a small bit of the jitters that you get at the start of a new season. Just that bit of anxiousness. Young Michael Allen has been playing well and, coming back in, you have to perform well straight away. And with bad memories from New Zealand I just wanted to get on the pitch and put in a big performance to build on.”

Cue Trimble’s first involvement, only to lose sight of Paul Marshall’s box kick and clatter into Hanno Dirksen well ahead of the ball to give away a penalty. He had a better hand in the Ulster try, fielding the ball and passing infield to Jarred Payne for the counter-attacking, 80-metre try in which Trimble had a couple of clear-outs. “I enjoyed it in the end, but I’m looking forward to getting a bit more game time this week and really getting into it, and getting to know what it’s like to play rugby again, because it’s been a while.”

Don’t mention the war?

In Trimble’s previous outing, when surprisingly demoted to the bench for the third Test in New Zealand, it was already 36-0 when he temporarily replaced Keith Earls, and 53-0 by the time he fully replaced Earls in the 64th minute.

“It was just miserable,” he recalls. “The whole squad environment and the buzz was great. I loved being on tour and the craic is great and the boys are good lads, but no matter how good everything is, it’s just miserable if you’re getting hockeyed by the All Blacks and that night was absolutely horrible. Afterwards, everybody was just ‘right, get us on holidays’.”

But while disappointed to be confined to just one start in the second Test, he admits “at that stage I wasn’t playing as well as I could have been playing.

“During the World Cup I thought I had been playing well and not getting picked, which was very frustrating, but this time I wasn’t playing well.”

He’s not sure why, perhaps it was tiredness at the end of a long season. “But I wasn’t where I should have been. Seasons go like that; peaks and troughs. It can change very quickly.”

Although Ulster also came up short in the Heineken Cup final against Leinster to sign off last season, and had missed out on the Pro 12 play-offs, the memories were more positive.

“Then to sign guys like Nick Williams, Roger Wilson and Tommy [Bowe] and with a new coaching set-up and young guys coming through, everything is fresh. Even though Roger and Tommy haven’t played yet, just the fact that they’re there [means] we’ve progressed from last year and makes us think we have a better team.

“And thinking you’re a better team often just makes you a better team.”

A five-game unbeaten start without so many frontliners only underlines the increased confidence levels, even if these are formative days. “Things change. You have to keep moving forward but it just gets everybody into the season. It just gets us excited about where we could be in six months’ time.”

On a personal level though, he’s not inclined to look further than tomorrow’s rendezvous with Munster at Ravenhill, made all the more expectant by both sides being two league wins from two.

“That adds to the occasion and they’ve got a few big names coming up, who usually don’t come up to Ravenhill, and hopefully that will bring the best out of us.

“Because anyone who watches Munster play knows how much they bring to the game. They’re physical and their intensity is high, and you just have to match that or you haven’t a hope.