Ulster trip good for everyone

The fly-half believes rugby supporters from the city could try and get to Ravenhill more often to cheer on the likes of Andrew Trimble, Johann Muller, Ruan Pienaar and Stephen Ferris, after meeting them.

“It was a good day not just for Derry rugby club, but for the North West in general,” insisted McCarter.

“It’s not often those guys come down and take part in something like that and by all accounts it was a great day for the kids and adults who attended and the Ulster players enjoyed it as well. It was also good to see the big name players coming to Judges Road.

“Everyone seems to think Derry is at the other end of the world compared to Belfast and maybe not too many people would get the chance to go to Ravenhill and see Ulster play, but now that they have met them and the fact that Ulster have been in the spotlight a lot more in the last couple of years, then it’s certainly growing here.

“So the fact that the kids and adults got to meet the players and that the Ulster guys interacted and mingled well it will definitely give them a bit of a buzz in the future.”

The 28-year-old, who is big friends with Ireland star Tommy Bowe, admits he doesn’t like to abuse that friendship with the Ulster man.

Their friendship goes back years and just a few months ago Bowe gave McCarter his Ireland jersey as an engagement present, after the Waterside man proposed to Kelly Holmes in Paris days before the now infamous match at the Stade de France was called off.

“Myself and Tommy have been good friends for the past 10 years or so, it started through playing representative rugby at schoolboy level and we just seemed to get on and since then we have kept in touch very well.

“He certainly comes in handy for certain things like tickets and stuff, but at the same time you don’t like to be hassling too much.

“Yeah it was nice of Tommy to give me his Ireland jersey as an engagement present from that now infamous match, which was called off late because of a frozen pitch.”

With Bevan Lynch now departed from the head coaching role at Judges Road and Mark Nicholl moving up to take over, the former Foyle & Londonderry College student feels that change might be what is needed.

“Mark has been a bit of a change and a bit of freshening up of things and maybe that is what we needed.

“The fact that Mark’s coming from being assistant coach to head coach has brought that level of consistency but at the same time he will be looking to stamp his mark on things.

“Everyone is buzzing and ready to go for the new season and that wee bit of freshness and change has certainly done us the world of good.”

Having just missed out on promotion last year after a disappointing end to the campaign the ex-Dungannon man feels the 2011/12 season wasn’t too bad.

“I think all in all and you put things into perspective, it wasn’t that bad a season for us, because two years ago with the same bunch of players we were playing junior rugby, now we are in the top half of Division Two A.

“There was definitely games and times in the year when we were a bit disappointed, but we are all learning still, we have a very young squad and the potential is certainly there, but its now time this year to use those experiences from last season and really kick on and try to get that promotion spot.

“We set ourselves high standards and we do believe that we are good enough, obviously last year we fell a bit short, but as I said we’ll learn from those mistakes.

“We are ambitious and we know that we are capable of playing at a higher level, so we’ll certainly be aiming towards doing that.”