Harry Paterson ends Edinburgh nightmare by playing part in poignant win over Ulster

The young winger has been sidelined for months by injury and now wants to kick on

Edinburgh winger Harry Paterson is delighted to be back playing after enduring a prolonged injury nightmare.

The 22-year-old returned to the Edinburgh starting line-up for the first time since January in Saturday night’s 27-24 United Rugby Championship victory over Ulster in Belfast. “It is has been a long time, January was the last time I played, I had an A game last week against Glasgow but apart from that I’ve been out for a long time so it is nice to be back and involved,” said Paterson. “It’s just been a little three months, three months, three months nothing major but just accumulated injuries.”

“My mother is from Northern Ireland, so she came over and the rest of my family as well which was lovely. It’s great to get a win here, it is a tough place to come, and this is probably the best atmosphere I have ever had in a stadium. I thought it was brilliant.

Harry Paterson helped Edinburgh record a big win over Ulster.

“It was a pretty cool occasion for me, we spoke during the week about how Ulster were going to be very direct and physical, they rely a lot on their set piece and their maul specifically. I thought we dominated them in the set piece especially in the first half.”

“I thought the front boys did really well stopping them going wide, so really happy with everything, once we nullified their maul it seemed to soften, they bow in attack.” Just at the end we let in a couple of easy ones, and we need to look at that but apart from that it was a pretty good performance.”

Patterson believed Ben Healy’s penalty to give Edinburgh a 13-12 lead at the interval was the turning point in the game. “It is always a nice momentum swing going ahead at half time even if it just is by a point but it definitely going into the second half it does help with things, so it was important,” he said.

With a busy period in Europe and domestically coming up Paterson is hoping the win at Kingspan Stadium can inspire Edinburgh. “Momentum going forward is massive, whoever is involved in Clermont will be a hell of a test and get our European journey under way but we will definitely take confidence from this.”

Personally, Paterson just wants to build up time on the pitch. “The name of the game is to stay fit and just accumulate time and things hopefully happen,” he added.