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It’s time for a little introspection for every one involved with Team Ulster. So, as George Michael says, sniff your armpit and have a bit of faith, faith, faith . . .
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How come Ulster always get a Scottish ref? the osprey v dragons game at rodney parade had nigel owens as ref they didn’t need someone from outside wales….
when trimble got spear tackled owens who was on the line flagged it and pointed it to the Scottish ref and surprise surprise no card only a penalty for ulster, never seen a player tackle this way and stay on the pitch.
Ulster players are at an all time low and then every monday they have to watch where they have gone wrong, maybe time to watch the replays of the games they have won like scarlets, bath and stade home games and forget about all the negatives.
well I actually cheched it out since the 19th Feb every Ulster game have been refereed by a Scottish Ref P Allen 3 times N Patterson twice and Andy Mac once
I just wonder to what extent the team suffer a morale collaspse when walking into the dressing room knowing they face an evening inconstancy.
Having faced it the week before
of course it is much easier to be firing on all cyclinders when you have everything to play for but once Ulster failed to make the Amlin when having a better record than at least two teams that made it by virtue of bonus points playing weaker opposition then the morale was bound to suffer similiarly the lack of game time during the Internationals doesn’t help since it only allows the disappointment to fester longer without a outlet for revenge.
But i would still accept as reasonable that at the start of the season Ulster where punching above their weight in several games and the potential for imploding was evident in the first game against the Dragons. a performance easily forgotten by some .
Absolutely spot on Ed.
Throughout the first half of the season there was a real vibrancy, terrific team spirit and buckets of passion …. Resulting in some fabulous performances with Ravenhill rockin’ (remember them?).
Then, post December, players who were playing out of their skin suddenly didn’t figure in future plans and surprise surprise, the rot set in.
After such a bright start, it’s such a shame for all supporters and those players who have been badly treated.
If one accepts that Best is an International Hooker and a near cert for a summer tour then it is essential he gets as much game time as possible
Now there are those who will say that Ulsters lineout only started to malfunction when best returned I don’t actual put that down to Best but down to a disorganised line out which was trying to confuse the opposition.
both Glasgow and Edinburgh have a number of Scottish Internationals both clubs have reasonable forwards who can match most packs both sides have also reasonable outhalfs and place kickers but their backlines are lacking flair and pace to actually capitalise on possession — thus both sides frequentally revert to the pass inside from the outhalf to a backrow coming at pace to forge the initial gap.
look at the score lines of the matches between Ulster and Glasgow Ulster Edinburgh over the last couple of seasons the result has frequental been down to points score from penalties or drop goals.
Ulster find both sides difficult to beat due to a lack of possession in the opposition half . Winning games against them requires the ability to keep the ball in the oppossion half of the pitch.
Ulsters run since christmas matbe some one would like to actual identify the number of games Ulster have played without a Scottish referee ? because I can hardly remember the last game without one .
Absolutely spot on Mark – couldn’t agree more or put it better myself.
The question was asked, “would you rank either of the two hookers above Best” Yes considering Best hadn’t played all season and both Andy and Brady had done an admirable job up till then,Rory should have been eased back in to the team with the odd 15-20 minute stint from the bench not given the starting spot without proving himself, he has been a shadow of the player that he was last season and is it any wonder… Bad man-management in the treatment of Rory and the 2 hookers who had played well up till then…….
The Players you have identified are all second string bar Ian Humphreys — who if the blinkers were removed was never going to an answer for Ulster on the retirement of his brother.
would you rank either of the two hookers above Best
Young and Fitzpatrick above Court and Botha
Faloon and Anderson above Pollock and Diack or Henry
Whitten above Wallace
Nagusa above Trimble
I doubt very much as to whether selection is based on Favorites
I was of the opinion when T Bowe left he realised that with out David Humphries the Ulster backs where going to struggle on two counts — firstly and inexperienced pack and a light weight outhalf.
The difference between the two teams on Friday night was Parks who given the opportunity put points on the board.
Glasgow only scored one try which is basically to be expected in the modern game due to the difficulty in recovering possession and or turning the ball over without being penalised.
If one analyses the squads available in the Magners league the top four must be Leinster Munster Ospreys and Cardiff the squads have an abundance of Internationals and players with four five years experience.
The rest of the teams make up the numbers and each given the opportunity is capable of getting a result playing each other but the crux is Ulster have the least experienced backrow in the Magners League and the experience in the second row is not much better,
But the real difficulty is at out half when the fans have a serious bias against O’Connor and are unwilling to allow him to develop properly at this level because really only by playing at ML level will his short comings become identifible
and corrective action taken.
I thought Edinburgh and Glasgow had a fair number of internationals available to them what was your analysis of them?
If you actually knew something about Rugby rather than recycle your favourite hobby horse then you would realise that the sum of the whole can be greater than the parts.
Those player that you disparage as not good enough put together a good run at the start of the season when they were playing for the shirt, ie they played as a team rather than individuals.
The return of the marquee players has seen some good individual performances but, for whatever reason, we have failed to recapture the team ethos that was present at the start.
I agree with Mark, professional sports is a results business if you don’t get the results you either go or be sacked …….. Simples
Dewi …. I agree McL has no plan b. The replacement of Fitzy and Andi K shows he has no feel whatsoever for the game and is playing from a manual.
Now 16 league games in a row where we have failed to outscore the oposition in the last 20 minutes. Who is the fitness coach?
Professional game….semi-professional coaching….amateur administration and organisation. Not rocket science.
“and it comes across as an irritable teacher disciplining naughty schoolboys.” Exactly but then again that is what we have, a school teacher on a two year sabbatical coaching a professional team with a back up team of novices and no defence coach, and you wonder why we our in the worse slump of form in the League…..At the start of the season Management set targets they were to get out of the group stages of the HC… FAILED…They were to get into the play-offs for the league…FAILED… and now qualification to next years HC is under real threat by an underfunded, under supported Connacht who have shown more rugby skills, qualification to the HC was almost guaranteed each year due to the gulf between ourselves and Connacht now that doesn’t even exist.. Best team in the world I would settle for the 3rd best team in Ireland at the moment…. we still might qualify for the HC but whither we do or don’t changes have to be made in the coaching set up, no sense in having world class players in BJ, Rush, Muller, Ferris and Pienaar(if he comes)coached by amateurs…..
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