As I walk this land of broken dreams. I have visions of many things.
Happiness is just an illusion, filled with sadness and confusion…
I will eventually reach Friday night’s Ulster game with Bath, but first I must take, if you forgive me, a little detour. A bit like walking to Ravenhill from the Rosetta via Forestside. At the end of last week I visited rugby websites relating to last weekend’s games, much as a tourist might take a trip to foreign parts. The metaphorical landscape of these sites was akin to visiting the world’s danger zones.
The Scarlets message board is inhabited solely by Scarlets fans who remind you how Afghanistan was when the Taliban ruled it. Outsiders are persona non grata as the Scarlettos tear each other apart in a ‘bloodfest’ of invective and dictatorial edicts which frequently call on the mullah to remove ‘imposters’ who are messaging the voice of reason. Factionalism results in lots of demands for the other lot to take medication.
I hurried away from this troubled spot and visited Turnipstan in the wake of their crushing defeat by the Mexicans. Reading the Turnipstan message board evoked visions of bearded men in robes wielding big sticks and chanting death to anyone who failed to chant death to anyone. One mild mannered chap suggested it might be the end of an era in Turnipstan and he was rounded on by the mob and the mullah called upon to dismiss him. I slipped away into the night to visit the Bath website which proved to be eerily quiet. Little sign of life intruded on a barren vista and I moved on to avoid absorption into this ethereal world.
By contrast Ulster’s UAFC website has been rather Tolkien these days with the message board reading like the green and pleasant land of the Shire. Posters have been behaving like hobbits, those meekest of people whom in true Hobbit fashion are unaware of the affairs of the World. The board even has its own unique hobbit, Jackie Brown, whose continued utterances defy the very definition of brevity and wisdom with piquant insights such as, ‘Ian Humphreys our saviour,’ replete with wavy davey emoticon.
My visit to the Bath site had not been a mirage of emptiness remote to my head, as the UAFC’s Bilbo Baggins later confirmed:
“Just had a look at http://www.bathrugby.com/home.php to see what their views on match are and all they have is us listed as next match, no reports, blurb or comments made and we talk about UR site at times.
I hope their team are taking this match as seriously as those who look after their website ”
So if the Bathers weren’t on their site would they be in the Rosie?
Friday afternoon, in lashing rain I picked up the suntanned French Arm of the Ulster Supporters Triumvirate, known for ease of reference as Faust, at the International airport. It was still tipping it down, as they say here, when I arrived at the Rosetta with Gillian in tow at 3.45pm, expecting to find a shed load of Barf supporters and a truckful of Ulstermen. A sole non rugbyesque fellow propped up the bar and a barman pottered about behind it waiting for a sale. The barfly informed us there was indeed a shed load of Bath supporters here but that they had taken over the bar next door. The irrepressible but somewhat damp Dewi Barnes arrived shortly thereafter.
As the lounge bar filled up and Bath supporters started to trickle in, I watched Dewi work the crowd so to speak. I had often wondered how he managed to get all those photos. Sure enough in walked a Roderick Usher figure dressed as a Roman centurion in a Bath shirt. Dewi immediately leapt up to greet him, try on his helmet and of course get the ubiquitous photo.
‘There’s loadsa Bath supporters here and a roman centurion,’ I texted to a mate.
‘I have a sword if you need to use it on the centurion.’ came the reply.
Looking at the chap’s plastic helmet and curiously plastic effect armour, I fancied my chances with a plastic fork had I been required to go to war.
We had been joined by two of the Faust consisting of Le Paul, and Phil D’Auvergne. Phil looks like a member of the French Front Row Union, but is in fact Welsh, a prop and domiciled in the Auvergne region of France. Having spotted the Raging Raven socialising busily at the bar, I enquired of Dewi if the Raven had his Beamer with him. The Raven had threatened to meet me on a zebra crossing in his Beamer due to my now publically declared antipathy towards Beamer drivers. As it happened there was a recently installed zebra crossing just half a mile from my house. I have developed a very nervous tic approaching this trademark crossing, he was joking of course, wasn’t he?
Despite a natural reticence on message boards, the Bath supporters turned out to be an amiable bunch, having bumped into a few on the way towards Ravenhill. The Faust hadn’t been at Ravenhill in 2 years and as we approached from the lowly Mount Merrion, the gleaming new stand drew intakes of breath. Match preambles consisted of a fireworks display causing the players to be enveloped in a fog from which the Bath players failed to emerge, even after the smoke had cleared. Anyone who attends Ravenhill on a regular basis knows, the wind blows down the old ground towards the beer tent so it was no surprise, except to the organisers, when the smoke drifted in the breeze and lingered long enough to hold up the start of the match.
Whilst the Barf support may have been quiet on the net, their coach had been busy paying his respects to Ulster and Ravenhill having lost there twice whilst an assistant coach with Stade. In saying he intended to slow the game down I thought that Barf would rumble the ball in an up the jumper fashion and keep the game tight. I never for one moment foresaw that his slowing down tactics would consist of a Barf player going down injured every five minutes. So many were the ‘injuries,’ that one suspected the Barf medical staff should have erected a field hospital on the pitch. Yes rugby is a contact sport and guys get injured but with the odd Ulster player going down they were out-injured by a ratio of about 3:1.
Bath were a team playing without confidence, rather like Ulster were last year. I was confident Ulster had the measure of them by the end of the first half and with the Ravenhill faithful, including Phil D’Auvergne replete with Ulster cap freshly purchased and lyrics of ‘stand up’, keeping the ref informed of the laws, things looked good for the second. I suppose I got a bit carried away, shouting too excitedly about a recalcitrant Barf player lying on the wrong side and getting up the nose of the Barf chaps in front of me. It was typical of their limited game (the team I mean!).
Classaens the Barf no. 9, is pardon the simile, a class player. He has lapsed into waving his arms about, much as Boss did when he weren’t getting good presentation of the ball. Surprisingly the back 3, including the much hyped Banahan, the second row lookalike wing, were poor. Banahan was relatively anonymous for such a big player and when he was seriously tackled, round the legs by Cave? I think, he col
lapsed like a pine tree with dodgey roots. Bendy the full back became a source of entertainment for the crowd when they copped on his ball catching skills had deserted him. I have no doubt Bath will be a much stronger team in January when we play them in the return fixture with the Saffie’s Luke Watson, a natural born leader at 8 and Butch James’s guiding hand at 10.
As for Ulster, we march on in ever more confident mood though one imagines Edinburgh will be looking to recover their equilibrium after a right tanking in Paris. Ulster will also be looking for revenge. Ulster should really have put them away by half time, thus there is a point to prove to this Edinburgh team, that we will not show such leniency a second time. It should make for an interesting game and thankfully with last Friday’s game not being televised we should be well off other team’s radar and SKY’s hype-ometer.
We have 3 major games through to the November break, so there is no reason for not keeping the focus. From here until November it will be about staying injury free, maintaining the defensive intensity we have developed and weathering whatever obstacles are put in our path, such as the persistent time wasting by last Friday’s opponents through players going down ‘injured’.
I dare not dream, but a win next weekend would lead us to believe we may yet be on the cusp of our best season in Europe since 1999. For now I’ll walk this land of other team’s broken dreams and dare to believe my own has found its mojo and a consistent vein of form that they can carry through to the end of the season.
For the record, a tired but unemotional BP arrived back at the bunker about 12.30 and preceded to watch through drooping eyelids the Leinster match. Earlier we made a belated trip to the Oktoberfest at the Kings Hall, being turned away at the door because of the lateness of the hour. The French arm of the Ulster supporters triumvirate have returned home happy and the Welsh hombre is now a converted Ulster fan with a new song in his karaoke playbook called ‘Stand up for The Ulstermen’. So if you’re in the Auvergne next summer you may well hear the refrain ‘Stand up for the Ul…..’ wafting out of a bar in a Welsh accent. Be sure to say hello to Phil D’Auvergne.
As BJ Botha might say, “chat soon and oh, hello Phil”
Corrections, comments or questions?