View from the Sofa: Sold short!

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It’s hard to know where to pin the blame for this one. Yes some players made mistakes, yes the referee was well below the standard required, yes the team selection was poor, yes the use of subs was mystifying  and yes the decision making was appalling over the last quarter but in my mind I’d place most of the blame on the IRFU and the Magners League for Ulster’s humping last night.

Well, I say humping, but it wasn’t really, as for sixty minutes Ulster outplayed a pretty piss poor Munster side and had Ulster taken their opportunities they could have been well ahead before pressing the self destruct button in the final quarter.

Yep, this young Ulster backline did a lot better than most people anticipated before kick off and the fact that they looked for long periods as though they were capable of grinding out a win made the eventual defeat and the one sided scoreline all that harder to swallow come the final whistle. If Ulster had converted Paul Marshall’s break in the first half and if the atrociously poor referee and his assistants had realised, or had the courage to realise, that . . .

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5 responses to “View from the Sofa: Sold short!”

  1. Mote – It is still my opinion that the IRFU dictate what sides are selected in interprovincial matches. I’m double sure of this during the world cup build up. Wannenburg and Muller hardly missed a game in South Africa but the ferocity of the game is so brutal in the Magners League that they can’t be risked?

    If you think the fans don’t worry about the quality of the players on show then I look forward to seeing 7,000 at the next Ravens match as lets face it three quarters of that starting team will be playing.

  2. JORDY

    anyone see Danielli not sure if he was in Limerick?

  3. JORDY

    Team selection was to blame a stronger bench should have been picked, why are professional sportsmen getting rested so often at least put them on the bench if they are needed, Best and Caldwell who gave away most penalties? i lost count
    and Marshall isn’t as good as he thinks he is, needs to calm the head but also needs a leader to settle him which they don’t have when Best is on the field.

  4. the mote

    The likes of Muller Pienaar etc being rested had little if anything to do with IRFU the only players with Irish potential are Best Trimble Court and Ferris with Paddy W a bench potential

    of those only Trimble and Ferris took no part in the game.

    My feeling is that the missing players where all carriying minors from monday and the management considered the risk was not worth the potential damage to the players with an easier match ? to played before the ERC.

    I doubt if a true rugby fan worries greatly who is actually playing as long as the game is a matched set of XVs and the game is a worthy spectacle and played on a level field ( a consistent fair and equitable ref )

    there are those who believe refs have small influence on a game unless it appears as points on the board nothing can be further from the truth a bad ref can inspire a team to make errors in the effort to compensate for previous decisions and or be less committed to the game for fear of the whistle.

    I actually thought it was a reasonable performance by most of the players until certain players went individual in the last 10 minutes with rash foolhardy plays which gave away 14 points and 19– 10 would have been a reasonable result given the team on the field

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