The workload has been heavy alright, four 80-minute shifts in the last five competitive games is testimony to that. and David McCann also put it out there last week when the Queensland Reds were here.
Indeed, there is only the one fixture which has not seen some involvement from the 24-year-old backrower and that was the shellacking in Toulouse at the start of December — not a bad one to skip — though more pertinently this translates into him having had gametime in 13 of Ulster’s 14 matches played so far.
An impressive ability to endure in one of the more attritional positions on the field and you wonder how McCann has coped with the undoubted strain it has placed on him physically and mentally.
“What helps that is having a good pre-season under the belt,” he explains of keeping his body reasonably fresh and, crucially, free from lengthy injury.
“And I played in the whole pre-season and made sure I was focused on my gym so now I don’t need to focus as much on my gym.
“Now it is more on recovery and there are plenty of ways to do that.
“There is your active recovery like sauna and ice bath, it is just making sure that you are doing that, taking care of yourself with massage, physio if you need to and just staying ahead of it.”
Sounds reasonable and then there is what’s going on in the also all-important headspace.
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“It is about keeping the mind fresh as well,” says the former Ireland Under-20s skipper.
“It is trying not to focus too much when I go home.
“I have thought about my rugby stuff but I give myself time to decompress and the work I need to do at the house, be it video, I just set aside the time for that and then just forget about it.”
That would have been rather more of an issue after Ulster’s previous competitive outing when they lost for the first time at home to Zebre three weeks ago; the 15-14 defeat flattering the hosts on what certainly felt like a new low point for the province.
McCann doesn’t, and really can’t, shirk this unsettling occasion which has focused minds now on muscling a way back into the URC’s top eight, starting with a nevertheless rather challenging looking task on the road at Benetton for Saturday’s round 11 clash.
“Losing to Zebre at home is not the standard that we set ourselves,” he states.
“And it is not something that we have come to expect of the last few years.
“But ultimately sport is sport, and they are competing just as hard as we are.”
We move rapidly on and the hit-out with the Reds last week is floated as something rather more upbeat, Ulster losing 38-31 to a Wallaby-heavy selection.
As McCann explains: “I definitely thought there were a lot of positives, our attacking shape was definitely better and defensively, I thought we were a bit more aggressive.”
“It was just a chance to go after those things after a week of training and it was really valuable after the loss to Zebre and now bringing all that into this week is really important for us.”
David McCann admits Ulster fell short of expectation when they crashed to defeat against Zebre
We don’t quite leave the Reds’ experience yet as, in a season where McCann has already come up against leading exponents of back row play in Cameron Hanekom, Jack Conan, Bordeaux’s Tevita Tatafu and Rory Darge, he also encountered Wallabies skipper Harry Wilson last week at Ravenhill.
“It was a good experience, he (Wilson) is a good player, I played against him at Under-20s level in Argentina (in 2019’s Under-20s World Championship) so it was great to go head-to-head with him.
“It is testing yourself to see the way they (the Reds) play, the way they went after the breakdown and the way they attacked was good to see.
“(You) test yourself against it and see where you are at.”
Looking at the bigger picture when assessing the many backrowers he has come up against during his career to date, McCann states: “Everyone has their different style and way of playing and you begin to see that some people are blunt or one-dimensional, but you maybe see some people that have all the skills and you can take parts of all that and add it to your game.”
Continuing the theme, he points out how he as a player can benefit from such exposure to others.
“It is identifying things that maybe you are not good at and how you think you should improve and then discussion around that with the coaches as well,” he says.
“I think once you have decided (what you want to develop) it is making that plan and going after it and being consistent with it.”
Consistency indeed. Striving for it, finding it and then holding fast are very much part of Ulster’s current agenda.
With another break in games looming after this weekend — due to the Six Nations, Ulster play again on March 1 when hosting the Scarlets and then do not tog out until the 22nd at the Dragons — it is imperative that Richie Murphy’s squad start racking up some wins in the League.
“Looking at the League, it is very tight so dropping points isn’t good for anyone,” says McCann of Ulster sitting just outside the top eight in a highly congested zone with Benetton on the same 23 point total but two spaces back in 11th.
“And we have done that a couple of times this year, been in winning position or been in positions to win and not ended up taking the points so I think we now have to get better at winning games and finishing games out.”
On with the workload then.