Ulster are set to receive a timely boost in advance of Saturday's RaboDirect Pro 12 semi-final against Leinster at the RDS with the return of the hugely influential Rory Best and Ruan Pienaar. Both have been sidelined since the Heineken Cup quarter-final defeat at home to Saracens six weeks ago.
The rigours of competing with 14 men against Saracens after Jared Payne’s fifth-minute red card were a contributory factor in the alarming medical bulletin in the fall out from that defeat.
Best sustained a significant ankle sprain, with his return coming, typically, at the sharp end of a projected six to eight weeks on the sidelines, while Pienaar had suffered a reoccurrence of his AC joint injury and it was anticipated he would be out of rugby for at least six weeks.
Both have been training since the end of last week, although Nick Williams' season is over due to the medial ligament injury he suffered in last Saturday's win morale-boosting win away to Munster.
Monitoring
"Nick is gone for six to eight weeks," confirmed Anscombe, "but the others are progressing. We're monitoring what they do to give them every chance.
“They’ve worked hard in the last few weeks and there’s been good progress but it’s too early to tell. They haven’t gone into contact work or really put pressure on themselves. So we’ll leave it as late as possible.”
In any event Anscombe admitted Pienaar and Best were likelier to return to action this weekend than John Afoa, who suffered a disc injury in his back against Saracens.
The dozen players whom Anscombe rested from his starting line-up at Thomond Park are all set to come back into the equation.
Tom Court, who like Afoa is bound for the Premiership next season, is serving the second week of his two-week suspension for the red card he received against Leinster at Ravenhill a fortnight ago.
Ulster come into this fixture with just two wins out of their last six games, yet two games away from a first trophy since their Celtic League triumph of 2006.
Disappointment
"After the hurt and the disappointment of Saracens there were two ways we could go and we talked about that. We could cry for the rest of the season and go out with a whimper and feel sorry for ourselves. But we've a good quality team here and that's not how we want to be remembered.
“We’ve had our highs and lows but as we showed last weekend we’re in a positive frame of mind and we want to finish the season with some silverware. That starts on Saturday by going down to Dublin and getting a victory.”
Given how Leinster have turned out the lights on Ulster’s campaign for the last three seasons – Pro12 semi-final and final defeats at Saturday’s venue sandwiching a Heineken Cup final beating at Twickenham – Anscombe’s team oughtn’t to lack for motivation or warning signals.
The suspicion has lurked that, at times in big fixtures and derbies especially, Ulster can be a little too motivated for their own good, and interestingly Anscombe cited “discipline” as a key lesson to be learned from the three aforementioned defeats.
“The key is when you’re playing quality teams like Leinster is that you’ve got to make sure your discipline is good and you don’t give them soft yards or soft points by ill discipline early on.”
