There was a point on Friday night when Ulster led Glasgow 13 – 3 and halftime loomed with just under 2 minutes to go. Ulster having scored their first try where back in their own half and conceded a penalty.
Glasgow kicked it to make it a 7 point gap and the match looked less secure for the home team as the teams trooped off. Moral of this particular narrative is that Ulster tried to play rugby in their own half and were punished. By contrast Glasgow ‘Parked’ the ball in Ulster’s half and invited them to run back at them, a tactic Ulster gratefully obliged, with the result a winnable match was lost, stuttering lineout or not.
Whether this is a blip or not, next week will tell the tale of the tape this far into the season. I would like to think that our coaches are not so far ahead of themselves that they won’t take responsibility for the tactical shambles. Paul Marshall is an excitable ferret and the coaching staff need to stand up and be counted for tactical mistakes such as bringing him on at such an early stage which led to the butchering of try scoring chances.
McGlocks reckons they’ll get a reaction next Saturday when they face Stade. Let’s hope so, for some players appeared focussed on Saturday week rather than the game at hand. It is up to the coaches to ensure the players are focussed on the game at hand and not the glamour tie the following week.
A Night on the Terraces
Not a good night for the players or the coaching team but it could have been worse! Like me they could have been on the Terrace watching with the disconcerting, apparitional presence of Chairman Kim who was spotted handing a drink to Freddie Benson in an apparent kamikaze attempt to buy votes.
Not sure what he wants elected to, because he has a lifetime appointment as chair of the Supporters Club. As an integral part of his campaign to be elected to something he appeared, in body at least, to distance himself from the second, sometimes at the third, barrier crew.
This is not so daft as it may seem, cutting off his right arm to grow more support by repositioning himself temporarily in order to fool some of the supporters some of the time.
I’ve Seen Fire and I’ve seen Rain
Even as the rain pelted down on Belfast streets and just as the tatters of Ulster’s poor tactical lament was drowned out by Glasgow’s ascendant kicking in the rain, the UAFC message board was gearing up for one of those rounds of schafenfreude that regularly blight the forum like a low budget potato famine.
So much rotten fruit was being hurled that the normally reticent ARCHIPELAGO, a writer much in the mould of fine wine, felt compelled to out himself as a dual moniker kinda guy, in the name of upholding the patriotism of the red hand and as a result came across like a bottle of Mundies.
This resulted in him in being, (I’m honoured to say), mistaken for moi, (the fine wine of course). There is of course only one Ballpark! Relief all round then, I’d hate to be the subject of such lurid speculation. Likewise I’d hate my CV to be picked over by message board jackals as if they were the guardian angels of Ulster rugby. Our new man at the helm I imagine will get the same feeling as the recently departed governor of Maghaberry prison and do a runner after 5 weeks, realising he was the only sane guy in the asylum.
BJ Not Go Home
Following this columns adopted player’s stirring Autumn performances for South Africa, there was much media speculation that BJ could go home early. One had visions of BJ in the carrier basket of a bicycle being uplifted into the overcast Ulster sky wrapped in a blanket.
Now BJ might complain about our weather, those dark days and rain lashed weeks, but it’s all for the consumption of his compatriots for whom he writes a column and it would appear he actually likes the rugby here my source has informed me.
It remains to be seen, but the thoughts of BJ repatriating himself to South Africa are receding by the light year, BJ’s not ready to go home just yet.
Bully Boys Whinge On.
Just when you think it’s safe to go out the Boks continue to whinge on about eye gouging with a picture of Brussow’s visage being published on, (I presume a Saffie website), showing him looking as if he went twenty rounds in a cage fight. This photo was apparently presented to the big ‘fight’ sorry match commissar as part of the Boks dossier on Irish weapons of mass destruction during the battle of Croker.
The South Africans appeared not to enter much evidence for the prosecution, bar a photograph and yet expect the match official to find out how the heroic Brussow got his damaged face.
Two things:
Go into any rugby clubhouse on a Saturday afternoon about half four and you’ll find more than a few bloodied and busted visages, mostly belonging to those denizens of the dark places, the front row and locks.
Secondly watch Brussow in action and you’ll realise he’s lucky to escape with just the odd cut round the eye. He comes quite a few times from an offside position, i.e. tracking back to the breakdown, grabs the ball and holding on to it for grim death he swivels 180 degrees to an onside position and waits for the ref’s whistle for holding against the opposition. Put your bake in dark places and you’ll get the odd scratch.
Jackie Brown said …
Copying a Neil F post along with a dozen other messages Jackie Brown, the UAFC’s answer to X Factor’s Cheryl Cole utterings, managed to copy about 3000 thousand words before uttering his own immortal words of wisdom to Neil F, “you ought to get out more!!”
Jackie continues to astound with his in-depth homilies on the UAFC board and liberal use of emoticons to describe his feelings towards other posters.
Meanwhile the sniper battle for Leningrad was re-enacted on the UAFC when the deadly Snipe Watson took on calculating Cap’n Grumpy and a whole army of posters in a deadly game of hide and seek amidst the ruins of the Ulster Glasgow debacle. Can’t remember who won, perhaps the battle’s into its 4th day already.
Another String to his Row.
Meanwhile, away from the mayhem and bombast of the UAFC message boards and second barriers, one man strode like a giant amongst pygmies and a man amongst boys.
Mid Ulster Maestro was spotted Saturday morning amidst the paddles, (sorry blades) and riggers of the rowing scene down by the Lagan with his youthful charges as coach for Portadown rowing club’s youngsters doing battle with the RBAI rowers.
Mid Ulster revealed how stressed out he’d been spending five minutes searching for his car keys through the myriad pockets of his many layered attire before finding them residing on the finger of his right hand.
So McGlock’s thinks coaching Ulster is stressful???
As BJ Botha might say, “take a chill pill.”
Corrections, comments or questions?