Cormac Izuchukwu mentioned his Six Nations debut within the 20-13 win over Italy was “unbelievable” amidst an injury-hit season for the Ulster lock.

The 25-year-old has had a stop-start marketing campaign as a consequence of damage and sickness, beginning simply 4 video games for Ulster and lacking Eire’s November video games.

He performed 59 minutes within the victory in opposition to Italy in his first recreation since 2 January, a reduction for Izuchukwu after fearing he would wish surgical procedure earlier within the season which might rule him out of the remainder of the marketing campaign.

“Clearly I have been injured for the entire season, performed like 4 or 5 video games, have not performed since early January I believe,” he mentioned.

“I met a surgeon not too long ago and I used to be imagined to get surgical procedure and stuff, and mentioned I might give it yet one more shot after which unexpectedly you are enjoying once more, so it is class.

“It is unbelievable. I used to be delighted.”

Izuchukwu, who has now received 5 Eire caps, admitted he was caught without warning on the magnitude of the Six Nations within the build-up to the Italy recreation.

“It is psychological as a result of for me on the France recreation, such an enormous stage and I had a style of it from sitting on the bench because the twenty fourth man, however then I deal with each Eire recreation identical to an Eire recreation,” he added.

“They’re all so particular to me, whether or not it is Portugal or Fiji or Georgia or no matter, they imply the world to me, however I used to be blown away by the response from social media, on-line and my household, it is such an enormous deal to them.

“Six Nations, perhaps I did not grasp it as a lot as I ought to have, in order that was a shock, however I type of got here to phrases with the final couple of days, acquired my head round it after which simply acquired caught in.”