Heineken Heroes: Tommy Bowe

Injury robs Ulster this weekend of one of the most lethal wingers that the Heineken Cup has seen in recent years.

By Declan Whooley

Tommy Bowe has been in blistering form over the past five years for club and country, but unfortunately the 29 year-old will have to sit out this weekend’s quarter-final trip to Twickenham to face Saracens after sustaining knee ligament damage against Northampton last December.

The Monaghan native has been terrorising European defences since he made his debut in the competition in 2004 and with 23 tries, is in the top 10 of all time try-scorers. Only Brian O’Driscoll, Shane Horgan, Gordon D’Arcy and Geordan Murphy are ahead of him from an Irish perspective, all the more impressive when you consider he has had fewer games to show his wares.

An impressive GAA player in his youth – he represented Monaghan at U16 and minor levels – he began to make a name for himself in rugby at the University of Ulster, earning international selection at U20 and U21 level and earning a call-up to the Ulster squad at the end of the 2003/04 season.

The following season he made his European bow in a 21-16 victory over Cardiff at Ravenhill. Bowe played all six pool games that season, scoring a try in the process. He also earned his first senior international cap that season while also crowned the Guinness Ulster Rugby Personality of the Year Award.

Must have been fashionable at the time

The following season he also played all the pool games with a try his return at a time when Ulster struggled to match the achievements of the all-conquering 1999 side. At the end of the 2008/09 season, Bowe decided to try a new challenge and announced he was moving to Welsh side the Ospreys and it was here that he really started running in the scores with his new team-mates.

In his first season he scored a personal best of four tries before Munster gave them a 43-9 thumping at Thomond Park in the quarter-final.

On the receiving end of a Thomond thumping

For the 2010/11 campaign the Welsh outfit were pitted in a difficult group featuring Leicester and Clermont, but they emerged from the group before an agonising one point defeat to Biarritz in France. Bowe was in blistering form, scoring seven tries in seven games that season as he finished top scorer in the competition.

The following year the Ospreys failed to make it out of their group that featured Munster. Bowe scored two tries that season, one of which was in another defeat at Thomond Park, a game best remembered for Paul O’Connell’s sending off on his return to action.

Last season the winger announced that he was to return to his home Province and add some strong competition to a team that reached the Heineken Cup final. Like Ulster, he was in great form early on in the season, before the injury set-back before Christmas.

He has been a huge loss to the Ulster cause and they will hope that should they prevail against Sarries, he could be available again for the next round. Either way, Bowe has proved himself to be a top marksman in the competition, and will prove a handful to defender for hopefully many more seasons to come.