Where we want to be. Where we are. Where are we?

,

McGlocks said pre friendlies, that by the end of the 3 matches he would know where the team is in terms of preparation for the coming season. Well the phoney war is over, the coaching manuals are dog eared, training ground moves rehearsed and the combatants primed for war, so where are we?

Our esteemed editor remarked he had a nagging feeling at the end of it all that we hadn’t appeared to gel, though he did go on to eulogise various aspects of the team and never really elaborated on that slight feeling of doubt.

For my money it’s extremely worrying that Ulster are being singled out for special interest in the Magners as a potential challenger to the usual suspects in the top 4. Evidence of decent summer signings and not so many internationals on duty being put forward as reasons for optimism.

I agree with the Ed that the back row balance needs careful attention but by and large competition amongst the forwards is healthy.  It is in the backs that we are looking a little fragile and at 9 and 10 we are an injury away from disaster.

I don’t share the UAFC messageboard faithful’s pronouncements on the doom laden 10 situation. For all his foibles in the defensive arena, I Humph is peerless at the instinctive attacking rugby and it should be noted that we started to motor at the end of the season when mini Humph returned to first team duties.

Further evidence of disquiet lies within the area of taking chances when they present themselves.  Otherwise known as clinical finishing or precision, it was left to Neil Doak to elaborate by saying that the team didn’t appear to see opportunities to score when they presented themselves.  Surely this has been a problem for several seasons now and perhaps lies within the coaching set up.

I would suggest that the instinctive play that has characterised someone like David Humphreys is being coached out of players and that is a problem that lies with the coaching staff. Therefore it was a little disconcerting to hear Doak proclaim the problem lay with the players.

To summarise. Unless we start taking chances when offered on a plate it will be another season of what might have been. Stand up Doak et al and let the players play with their heads rather than your coaching manual.

Irish Aura Fades as Welsh Hubris Amplifies

Writing in this morning’s Sunday Times Peter O’Reilly remarked that the launch of this season’s Magners League felt like a celebration of Welsh Rugby. No doubt weight was added to this impression when Dai Young, the Cardiff coach lamented the passing of the aura of Irish Provinces in the Magners League, citing how they’d won at Ulster the last two seasons, pushed Leinster hard and done the odd number on Munster.

Great I say, bring the Blues on, I feel we can burst their particular bubble with no greater incentive than Welsh cock sureness to motivate the Ulster team.

The Welsh win a few competitions and suddenly they develop a world beater mentality.  A bit like the English when they win a few 6N games and all of a crescendo they’re ready to play in the Tri Nations, enter the space race and make world domination look like a school play.

As for the Cardiff Blues, when they visit Ravers this season it will be a case of die Young. Let’s make them feel welcome and practice our greetings with the Ospreys on Friday with a few baaaaaa! baaaa! baaaaa’s!.

The Mote Wrote…

In response to the Mote’s response on my comments about the AB’s bending the rules I would comment as follows:

The sooner the AB’s win the World Cup the better. Then the rest of world rugby can go back to playing a style of rugby that accommodates the varied styles and tactics of the game we once knew. Hopefully we won’t have to watch the perpetual keep ball that some Southern Hemisphere teams think is true rugby union.

Unfortunately I note this morning that the referees will be favouring the attacking team in the coming season. If this means the defence free zone of rugby we saw yesterday between the Boks and Aussies then I think I’ll give the game a miss, no matter if it’s Ulster winning by a sackful.

I doubt there is much of a capacity amongst dedicated rugby supporters for this kind of basketball nonsense that is being peddled as ‘ennertainment’.

BJ – a Tortoise required to be a Hare?

BJ Botha was singled out for special ‘praise’ by the Boks fitness and conditioning coach as not being up to speed and intensity of the Southern Hemisphere game.   I suspect there is more than a whiff of pressure being applied to the great man to come home and is also a political swipe at the Northern Hemisphere game as much as an issue of fitness and athletic ability.

It is a sign of the neurotic obsession within the SH game with ‘entertainment’ and the infatuation with rugby union as a game stripped of all its intricacies and condensed into a single all dancing, all singing chorus line where the only sign of non conformity is in the shirts of the respective teams.

Props primarily scrummage, that is the tenet of their function within the traditional rugby union game and to suggest they should be sprinting like cheetahs and passing the ball like Harlem globetrotters is to suggest the IRB are steadily scrapping the last vestiges of the traditional union game. Consigning it to the scrapheap in favour of a hybrid that will long term merely induce boredom in spectators.

There may well be a power struggle within the Springbok union as evidenced by the various pronouncements on whether to continue with Sanzar after 2015.  By implication some in SAFRU are looking towards the NH game and the rubbishing of NH based player’s fitness is merely evidence of shots fired in an internal power struggle.

Moore Memories

Walking towards SS Moores this morning in a vain attempt to purchase a new Kukri baseball cap I was reminded of the time a few years back now, on a wet but warm August afternoon seeing former Ulster and Australian prop, big Rod Moore ambling down a side street towards the City Hall.  Dressed in just the v-neck sweater and jeans, despite the rain, he looked for all the world like an outsize build-a-bear.

Many will remember Rod, the so laid back, he was almost horizontal, prop with the long shaggy mane and ambling gait…. that was just on the pitch by the way.   One wonders what the amiable big fella is up to these days!

Birdie and the Beast

Meanwhile at the City Hall, a little birdie perched atop a statue, told me it spotted the Beast sitting on a park bench throwing crusts to the pigeons and muttering away to one of them.  Picking the pigeon up he quickly attached a message before sending it skywards.

My winged informant followed the pigeon out along Belfast Lough before returning exhausted in search of crumb but tells me the pigeon, replete with message, flew in a south, south east direction like towards the West country.

This fits in with rumours circulating on an obscure rugby messageboard forum that the Beast was seen two weeks ago in the presence of Bath’s director of rugby and coach, McGeechan and Meehan respectively, at a well known Belfast coffee shop. The publicity shy Beast is clearly keeping his cards close to his pigeon chest after previous revelations.

Willee, Wongtee

The ongoing saga of Raymond ‘I Will resign’ Kennedy, continues to appal all right minded and coherent people in the sporting world of GAA, rugby and of course his own backyard, football.

Jim ‘outraged by politicians’ Gracey, the Sunday Life’s sports Editor has been a bit more circumspect on this one, following his ‘hypocrite politicians who dashed his Maze Stadium white elephant dream’  diatribe a few weeks back.

Perhaps football and Raymond K are a bit too close to home for Jim to chant names at the dinosaur. After all, were the pair of them in the one room you would have consider which one was the elephant.

Irish League football and the agenda gendered gentlemen who haunt the back corridors of phwoar, continue to astonish and depress in equal manner. They manage to transfix the headlines for all the wrong reasons and it comes as an equally depressing shock to find rugby lumped into the same barnacle encrusted shipwreck as these pre historic relics.

In a nutshell, McCausland, the DCAL minister, whether through procedural technicalities or not, has declared that neither GAA or rugby will have their monies for stadium renewal until football put their house in order.

As he spelled out on Thursday, the heads of Kennedy and Martin on a plate are just one bit of the football reform. He expressed his disappointment that the review into structures hadn’t yet started. In response to another question McCausland stated that the review if started soon and if undertaken by competent personnel, would be finished by the end of October!

Funding would then be ratified by the Executive and the Assembly. Think Christmas before any money appears, if at all. The fit controller’s dream of starting work in January is looking just that,   a dream.

Will we see Gracey go hissey on behalf of rugby and GAA? Don’t hold your breath, you could still be holding it by Christmas. This morning’s Sunday Life makes depressing reading with what is termed an expose of Kennedy’s lack of judgement and plain despotic attitude towards Howard Wells.

Willee, Wongtee Part Deux!

Having seen the report on Wells debacle, the Sunday Life were claiming the sports funding is not interlinked between the 3 sports but could not substantiate that aspect and further stated that the  3 sports were lumped into the same business case.

Add to what I heard from the minister’s own mouth on the radio and I would hazard a guess that we are depressingly dependent on football getting its house in order.

Where are our politicians when we need them. For sure they can showboat at a European cup final in Lansdowne Road in 1999, but when you need them to represent your sport in the corridors of intrigue up on the hill they are strangely absent.

See you all Friday night, here’s to victory fur die Ulstermen!!!


4 responses to “Where we want to be. Where we are. Where are we?”

  1. the mote

    PB

    To illustrate the importance of defence look no further than last Saturdays Tri Nations SA v A
    South Africa won the game because in the second half the SA defence held out in the second half.

    To illustrate the effect of the Ulster team’s weakest link look no further than Ulster v Bath where the Whitten Humphreys Cave defence in mid field was exploited by Bath who ran at IH all night.

    You also regard the demise of the old fashioned prop but to be honest the old fashoined prop is the author of his own demise .— again look no further than the Bath game where the Bath props induced the dropped scrum by pushing down on the Ulster front row all night and only pushed forward on the Bath put in. It is a combination of the props dropping the scrum and the inablity of referees to referee the srcum that has demeaned the scrum as a means of restarting the game.

    A large proportion of scrums now terminate as either a free kick or a penalty because referees become frustrated by the forwards inablity to form a scrum where the ball can actual go into the scrum. and they frequently penalise the wrong team.

    The old fashioned prop’s only contribution to the game is to provide a barrier to protect the scrum half at the ruck and while he may also guard the edge of the ruck in defence the old fashioned prop lacks the momentum to drive the on coming attacking forward backwards.

    Having watched the ABs this year in the Tri Nations I don’t believe they are unbeatable provide the team playing them can absorb the forward power and defend . The ABs lack of flair in the backline could be their downfall.

  2. the mote

    BP

    The word “peerless “and I Humph do not belong together because his confidence is a fickle finger and while you have a love affair with attacking rugby and of course attacking rugby is the major draw of the crowd it is not the thing that wins matches.

    Keeping the ball unfortunately is the key and with referees favouring the attacking side if your defence is weak you pay a terrible price..

    A team is not as good as it’s most inspirational player it is as weak as its weakest and unfortunately I Humph is that link in the 15 man game.

  3. Ballpark

    ‘Coherent’ has been used as a diametrically opposed adjective to the noun Kennedy!!!!! Sort that one out JEK!

  4. Johnny King

    I have to congratulate you Parky: that’s the first time I’ve seen “Raymond Kennedy” and “coherent” used in the same sentence.

Corrections, comments or questions?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.