**John Cooney already has a space on his wall awaiting Ulster silverware and now is the time he plans to fill it.** Cooney has some recent experience of being involved at the sharp-end of a campaign, as Ulster went down to Glasgow Warriors in last season’s Guinness PRO14 Semi-Final – a couple of months after falling 21-18 to Leinster in the European Champions Cup quarter-finals. Yet the scrum-half is already fed up with being the bridesmaid and is desperate to turn those near misses into trophies this time around. He may have grown up in Dublin, burst on to the scene with Leinster and then spent three productive years at Connacht but Cooney is now very much an adopted Ulsterman. His snipes from the base of rucks, metronomic kicking and breakaway tries have meant that, despite the almost impossible task of replacing the legendary Ruan Pienaar as Ulster No.9, the Terenure boy has been welcomed by the Kingspan faithful.
