PRO12: Ulster 9 Llanelli 16, 5th September 2008.

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Matt Williams, Ulster Rugby

This is always a hard report to write. First game of the season, new, coach, new team, home game and a defeat. Natural loyalty to Ulster makes it difficult to pan the team too much but you can’t overlook some basic inadequacies. 

Let’s get the unpleasant stuff out of the way first. This defeat can be placed solely at the feet of the coaching staff. Llanelli were better prepared and looked sharper all over the pitch. Their preseason obviously appears to have been spent working on a settled side whereas Ulster’s was spent in experimentation.

This was the first time that this starting fifteen had played together and unfortunately it showed. Llanelli were much quicker from kick off and their greater cohesion at the breakdown nullified any advantage Ulster had in the first half from the elements. When Ulster did start to gel, during the last quarter, they had left themselves . . .

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One response to “PRO12: Ulster 9 Llanelli 16, 5th September 2008.”

  1. mark purse

    On the coaching staff, another problem was the fact that another prop was not on the bench condidering that the weather was forecast days in advance and it was one of those games that the pack was going to win rather than the backs. Going to give my MOTM to Fitzy, not because he scrummaged well because he did (nothing new there then) not because he gave his all and that he is Ulster through and through but on the sheer fact that he lasted the full 80 minutes and was absolutely dead on his feet at the end of the game, a disgrace that he was expected to last the game with no cover on the bench, Fitzy we salute you.

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