Dear friends and enemies, I once again find myself positioned before the keyboard ruminating on the start of yet another new Ulster rugby season. There is little to be fired up about in this, my umpteenth time to sally forth and watch Ulster. It may be the ‘growing old’ thing but I have increasingly found the cojones less and less regenerated as each season enters its build-up period, when the chatter usually turns to who has been signed or how does the squad look and what will we achieve in the coming season. With all that has preceded it I have little enthusiasm thus far or much optimism. That little genie which comes out of the bottle at this time of the year and encourages a positive frame of mind is sadly missing.
I spoke a few million blogs back about Ulster Rugby’s PR campaign which assaults you with some of the latest communications aids but conditions one to feel further from the core spirit that once epitomised Ulster and its rugby followers. There are a few factors that fuel this malaise and failure in faith. I daresay the departure of Matt Williams is one. His arrival was like a newly commissioned liner, in a blaze of glory by day which departs in a shroud of fog by night, has left a lingering raw taste. I personally felt sorry for Williams who came looking for coaching redemption and left in ignominy with the stale air of divorce casting a pale shadow over proceedings. Of Williams nothing has been heard. He has been air brushed from Ulster rugby history like a dissident Soviet in communist era Russia. Yet one felt he was obliged to toe the party line with the repeated mantra of youth development resonating round Ravenhill as if like public broadcast to indoctrinate the faithful.
Having gone outside the restricted fields of coaching parameters that are Northern Irish rugby and plucked a seemingly credible coach from a backwater of business by a selection criteria which has remained undefined to this day, we the long suffering Ulster support, have come a full circle with a local coach being employed for the new season.
The parallels with Mark McCall are irresistible. Perhaps the set-up is slightly different with David Humphreys in a Director of Coaching type capacity. We also have a creditable forwards coach in Jeremy Davidson who has superb credentials with coaching experience from the French League and British Lions playing experience under, top coach, Ian McGeehan. The facilities for the players are better than ever with the Newforge set up now in full swing and the Sports Institute facilities, (which I saw for the first time this morning when I left one of our Spanish guests down to the senior summer camp at Jordanstown), looking superb. A new stand and corporate facilities continue to rise from the grey concrete and raw steel barriers of the Terraces. The players, if the videos produced and edited by UR are to be believed, continue to sweat the perspiration, hone the muscles and trim the skills. By chance I saw and went down, but not up, the sand dune the players were filmed carting 20 kg loads on and it is far steeper than the video shows. The hill at Barnetts Demesne featured in one of the latest videos, I have run up a few times as a mere amateur pre season and it is tough believe me. The tractors tyres I’m glad to leave to the professionals.
Yet for all the buzz and Buzz, razmattaz of new stands, coaching re-organisation and restructuring there is a feeling, never too far away, that behind the facade lies a deeper truth which may yet bubble to surface and crack a carefully orchestrated front. The shining white lie as it might be known in other arenas, say of war and conflict can only be perpetrated for so long before its lanced by grim reality. Truth to my mind is that Ulster Rugby’s reliance on youth is more to do with lack of resources than any long term desire to nurture youth as a going concern in the hurly burly of professional rugby, though it may yet be a by product of course. The team badly lacks a core of experienced players and whilst Matt Williams may have harped on about Leinster and their young side, the fact was that behind it lay a core of experienced and hardened internationals whom could produce the goods when the chips were down. This was more apparent post Williams when the current side, whilst sprinkled with youngsters of the talented kind, retained a core of hardened pros right through its spine. Ulster do not have this core and will suffer in the heat of battle.
What is unnerving is the dogs are barking, as debated and denigrated on the UAFC site, and there is that nagging, gnawing feeling of something not quite right. Anyone who has ever heard a distant dog bark on an isolated rural habitat will know that feeling of slight fear of the unknown and the accompanying menacing quality. Much of it is the tittle tattle of unsubstantiated rumour and aside. Within it lies a nugget of truth. Most unsettling was the comment that senior players think the squad is a glorified YTP scheme. This could be dismissed out of hand as a throwaway line but within it may lie the truth that the senior players may feel they are carrying too many kids and that can’t be good for morale. Mind, one guy failed to spot Ed O’D in the videos leading him to believe Ed had fled AWOL, so one must not get too unsettled by the rumour mill of message boards. The preambles weren’t great though with a concealed trip to Bayonne and a warning that they had a team of kids and were virtually beaten before they started. This kind of talk coming from the mana
gement has to stop otherwise it undermines the supporters confidence never mind the youngsters brought in to play for the red hand.
One desperately hopes that one is wrong in pre judging Ulster’s season but it is hard to do well when we have too many youngsters in the team and have failed to build a core of old hands round which the so called kids could rally for confidence. Perhaps a little pessimism will go a long way to making the season look better than it’s shaping up to be. Replacing the usual pre season optimism with a bit of realismo will soften the blow of another season of mediocrity and near bottom table achievement. One feels that the difference in Williams having a good season and a bad one lay in the failure to land critical penalty kicks. It may be even worse this time round with not even missed kicks being capable of excusing what are potential hidings round every corner. I hope not but …
Ideally the team will go out and win those narrow games which they threw away last season. Perhaps all that running around sand dunes, throwing tractor tyres and yomping up hills will improve the fitness in the closing minutes of games and allow them to close out close matches with a win. The jury’s out, optimism in the red zone and a healthy dose cynicism is on my plate.
We shall see.
Hope I’m proved wrong!! As BJ Botha might say, “Hey! Thanks mate!”
Corrections, comments or questions?