Billy Burns focused on keeping Ulster No10 jersey before thinking about Ireland
Ulster No10 Billy Burns is not getting carried away with talk of a return to the Ireland set-up ahead of the Six Nations and is instead remaining focused on staving off any competition he has for his jersey at Ulster.
With an enormous Johnny Sexton shaped hole left in Andy Farrell's Ireland team heading into their title defence next month, Burns made the perfect statement on Monday with a player of the match against Sexton's former side and United Rugby Championship leaders Leinster.
There is plenty of competition for the green No10 shirt heading into the Six Nations, but Burns feels he has enough on his plate at Ulster competing with 24-year-old Jake Flannery. Nevertheless, Burns' performance in Ulster's 22-21 win at the RDS Arena threw him straight back into Ireland contention.
Speaking to Off The Ball after the match, the 29-year-old expressed his desire to add to his seven Ireland caps, and said that watching the World Cup only inspired him to fight his way back into Farrell's reckoning.
"I'd love to," Burns said when asked about playing for Ireland again.
"Of course it's any person's dream to play. Watching the World Cup only gave me more incentive to try and get back there, but I'm going to be boring, it's the same old- one good performance doesn't give me the right to be talking about that yet.
"I need to keep backing it up, keep working hard. I'm really enjoying playing with this group of boys and I'm enjoying the process of us getting better. I'll keep doing what I'm doing- it's tough enough keeping the No10 jersey at Ulster at the moment, Jake Flannery's putting huge pressure on and he's playing incredibly well. I'll keeping doing my stuff here, keeping working on my game- I know I've got plenty of areas to work on."
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Some interesting stats that just proved what my first impression of NZ’s drive to speed up Rugby Union would amount to - fine margins here and there to cut a few seconds off the game and nothing else. To do more there would have to be wholesale changes to the game like doing away with scrums, lineouts and bringing back the ELV’s to have free kicks instead of penalties. Very little chance of it happening but, in the end, Ruby Union would be a 15-man version of Rugby League. There are reasons why Rugby Union is globally more popular that Rugby League and what NZ are also not considering is the unintended consequences of what they want to achieve. This will end up turning Rugby Union into a low value product that will not be acceptable to the paying public. If people really wanted a sped-up version of rugby, then why is Rugby Union globally way more popular than Rugby League? Rugby lovers all over the world are also not stupid and have seen through what NZ are trying to achieve here, selfishly to bring back their glory days of dominance over every other nation and compete with Rugby League that is dominant in Australasia. NH countries just don’t have the cattle, or the fantastic weather needed to play like NZ SR franchises do so good luck to whoever has to try and convince the NH to accept going back to the days of NZ dominance and agreeing to wreck the game in the process. I have serious doubts on the validity of the TV stats presented by GP. All they did was expand the broadcasting base by putting it on free to air, not even any indication of arresting the continued drop in viewership. Match day attendance goes hand in hand with broadcast ratings so if there was an increase in the one you should expect to see it with the other. However, the drop in match day attendance is very evident to the casual highlights package viewer. The only club who looks to be getting solid attendance is the Drua. I am calling it now that NZ’s quest to speed up the game will fail and so will the vote on the 20-minute red card.
Go to commentsIt’s a good, timely wake up call for NZ Rugby (seem to be a few of them lately!) - sort out the bureaucratic nonsense at board level. We can’t expect to stay the number one option without keeping fans/players engaged. We’ve obviously been bleeding players to league for years but can’t let the floodgates open (although I think this headline is hyperbolic as it’s a result of a recent Warriors pathways system where they are tracking things more closely) Understand the need to focus boys on rugby if they’re at a proud rugby school too, don’t think it’s harsh at all re Barakat in Hamilton. Reward the committed players with squad positions. An elite 1st XV system in NZ has done more for league than they even realise, think it’s good to protect our game further.
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