Building up for match night felt good again and it had been a while since Tom Stewart had been able to turn his thoughts towards trying to achieve the squad goal from any given week.
Last week was only the second time he has been able to play in this injury-disrupted season, just coming off the bench against Exeter Chiefs as much a relief as it was his contribution to rolling in the scores and posting as big a total as possible for Ulster’s hopes of last 16 rugby in the Champions Cup.
Stewart’s previous match involvement had been in November against Leinster when the 24-year-old hooker came off the bench and, well, afterwards his troublesome ankle issue was biting at him enough to be stood down again, through to January meaning he has missed much and is now quite keen to get on.
“It’s lovely to have something to build for towards the end of the week,” he says having come through the thumping of the Chiefs seemingly unscathed.
“Rehab can get a bit monotonous week after week, following the same programme, doing the same thing and you feel like there’s not really an end goal because it’s (playing again) so far away.
“But it’s nice going week to week with Friday and now a longer turnaround to Sunday.
“It’s also kind of good for me having that time after the Friday game to roll into Sunday but I’m just now looking forward to getting minutes under my belt and hopefully getting through them injury free.”
Yes, the injury. It turns out that Stewart had been carrying it for a while before it was finally decided to get some essential repairs carried out to allow him to continue without the potential for much more serious damage.
He’d probably rather not reflect too much on an issue which has kept him out for such a substantial part of the campaign, there being nothing worse than knowing you are helpless to do anything but look on, but this being essentially the hoped for proper return to playing there is need for a revisit.
“It was an ankle, and it was a while ago towards the start of last season when I got caught in a maul and jammed it up and then I just tore the cartilage in my ankle, so it was sticky enough last season,” he explains.
“I played through most of last season with it and then it was just a decision with the coaches that it was something that needed done to kick on in the future.”
Well, that was the plan but, not unusually, the project then went somewhat awry after he had been given the green light for November’s loss to Leinster at Ravenhill.
“I don’t even know,” he says of what might have happened to aggravate the issue again.
“It didn’t feel like one scenario at the time, I kind of came off the pitch and it was a bit stiff and achy and just didn’t feel right and I think the physios and myself weren’t confident to keep pushing through it.”
His frustration was obvious, more time out and a waiting game to see how and when things might be back on an even keel, a situation that ran through Christmas and the festive interpros.
At least the two times Ireland capped player is not exactly a stranger to rehabbing tricky injuries having encountered them earlier in his career though, having said that, this will have been a particularly inopportune moment with Gus McCarthy coming through for Ireland this autumn, the space created for him by the then absence of Dan Sheehan.
“It’s frustrating as things were going well for me and I was hopefully finding a bit of form and things like that, but I think it matures you quite quickly when you get things happening at a young age.
“You see the low points of the game fairly early on and it gets you to respect and appreciate the high points and being out there with the team,” says Stewart.
One of the highs was undoubtedly back in season 2022-23 when the former Belfast Royal Academy pupil ended up top try scorer in the URC, his 16 touchdowns a record for any player in the league over the course of a campaign.
The record could become a bit of millstone in that he will doubtless forever be asked about it — a lot of the scores came from Ulster’s then rather high achieving mauling game — and Stewart patiently fields the inevitable query about a time when he seemingly scored tries for fun.
“That season was great, and I scored a load of tries, but I think from the perspective of stepping away from the tries and actually looking at my game I thought I played well,” he says.
“I may never break another try record again, but I feel I’m happy enough with that, I just want to get my game around the pitch and build the minutes over what’s left of the season.”
Minutes, building pitch time, putting in the yardage, all this, along with being part of a winning side, is in the foreground now for Stewart who is clearly eager to make up ground now that he is fit again.
“It’s frustrating when you’re on the sidelines, you feel you just want to help out and there’s not an awful lot you can do apart from try and help boys when they come and ask you questions or if you have any two cents to add,” he says.
“But that’s professional sport you have these injuries and that’s a part of the game too.
“So, it’s nice to be able to get some minutes in, obviously during this break in the Six Nations there aren’t an awful lot of games to go after but it will be nice to get training in and get a lot of reps with the boys and getting back into the team consistently.
“We’ve a good fixture against Queensland Reds (on February 7) which I’m really looking forward to and an opportunity to build some more minutes.”
With Rob Herring in Ireland camp, the No.2 jersey is there for Stewart to claim, and he starts on Sunday when Zebre are the visitors to Belfast.
Stewart certainly felt the burn when turning out against the Chiefs, with No. 16 on his back, both from just not having played and from the extra poundage he has put on to bulk up.
“I was punctured out there,” he admits, “but I just need minutes under the belt and once I get confident playing at this weight, I think it will be good in the long run.”
Yes, the weight thing, as Stewart explains he had to go through the whole experience to get where he is now.
“I was trying put on a bit of size, a bit of good weight and unfortunately there was a bit of bad weight put on too but I got some of that shifted and I’m feeling good and confident and I’m hoping it’s something I can add into my game as a bit of extra beef to carry around.”
“Yeah, highs and lows,” he says.
He knows the drill well.