After a bit of difficulty getting into the Errigle, it was reassuring to note that we didn’t miss much of the start of the game. Well, maybe it would have bee better if we had missed quite a bit but, once again Ireland failed to excite.
Not a lot to say about the match except that the headline in the Irish Times was very apt. More interesting than being hacked off by the column inches in the newspapers were the Munsterfans forum and the usual rabble rousing, red tinted incestuous posting, that follows a wonky Irish rugby display.
You know an Ulsterman has a good game when Munsterfans aren’t too sure if one of their own should be selected for the next match in his place. That was the case with Rory Best’s display as the MF faithful’s faith in Fla, (Jerry Flannery) wobbled under the weight of the Ulsterman’s near faultless performance!!
Most of the vitriol was reserved for Leinster players with one wit reporting that Jamie Heaslip had been so anonymous in the game that he had managed to tweet during it. Must admit myself, that JH was a tad invisible, as if preserving himself for the big one next Saturday.
As one of the untouchables within the Irish team it is a moot point that he will be replaced unless of course he breaks both legs and beats Declan Kidney to a pulp.
Shane Jennings came under the MF microscope though it has to be said magnification couldn’t produce enough evidence to say whether he’d been on the pitch or not. Leinster fans were not taking this lying down and reported Ireland’s game as deteriorating, when Shane was withdrawn from the fray.
Can’t say I noticed that either, the deterioration I mean, as it seemed Ireland just trundled on in their familiar pattern of no discernible pattern at all.
Johnathon Sexton had the spot-lamp placed firmly on his kicking, game management and form by MF and was found wanting by the red shirted jury, all handpicked from the rugby population west of Dublin. Again I failed to spot significant differences between the starting 10 and the replacement.
Perhaps my rugby instincts are blunted by watching too much rugby but it was hard to get excited by the rugby world cup especially when you receive a text encouraging you to watch an exciting game where there’s just 2 minutes left of it. That was the case with Japan and France which by all accounts was very exciting but had a predictable result.
Three For The Road
The World cup malaise must have ingratiated itself deeper than I imagined, for by Saturday afternoon I leaped from the sofa, where I had collapsed after finishing domestic chores, suddenly remembering Ulster were in the far flung parts of the RABOPRO12 empire.
Due to lack of television, a good thing according to a Dan chewy tweet, I had to tune into the UAFC forum and catch up on postings of match progress. The game had almost finished and like Ireland, Ulster won but hadn’t been convincing or scored four tries.
Lamentable as it is not getting bonus points every time we pitch up, it was even more lamentable a few short seasons ago when we couldn’t win a game at Ravenhill never mind let the opposition off the hook by not scoring 4.
I recall watching us play the usual Munster 3rd XV they send up nowadays and we were leading them 22 -3 having scored 3 tries to none. Two worried, gloomy looking Munster supporters stood beside me on the Terracing.
“Don’t worry,” I said sympathetically, “we normally stop scoring tries at 3.” Munster scored a try but this did little to lighten the two Munstermen’s complexions. However a second Munster try led one to exclaim, “I tink you might be roight.”
By now my own complexion matched their previous gloomy visages, for deep down I knew we seemed to have the mental incapacity to stretch our domination and keep on scoring.
Many fans will remember that game a few seasons ago when an Alan Quinlan led Munster beat us by a few points. Following Saturday’s result in Viadana my mind has wandered back to this troubling default of 3 tries.
Even last season we rarely troubled the scoreboard beyond 3 tries, it seems to be our default position and could yet again cost us this season. It’s a measure of how far we have travelled in a short space of time when supporters complain about not winning with bonus points for scoring 4 tries.
Self improvement is the bywords of modern working philosophy so we must remain critical in order to achieve even loftier standards.
Falling Numbers
My mind focussed on falling supporter numbers this season. The sight of the stand looking like old mother Hubbard’s cupboard at the Glasgow match has led me to wonder why the support isn’t turning out in larger numbers to support a successful team.
There were and are undoubtedly economic factors, TV, Northern Ireland playing on the same night and of course, the end of the holiday period. Fair enough, except there doesn’t seem to be that much of an uplift in season ticket sales.
Ulster Rugby put a lot of eggs in that particular basket to the extent that fans buying tickets on a match by match basis may well have felt as invisible as Shane Jennings seemed against the Eagles.
It’s time UR made an effort to entice the match buying fan and face up to the fact that for all their egging on of supporters to buy ST’s there isn’t a lot of increase in sales to support their investment. Someone got it wrong in the marketing department, never a UR strongpoint let’s face it.
Finally.….
My poll on John E king’s chequered career failed to take off, a bit like UR’s ST marketing strategy. For the record:
JEK once drank 12 pints at Ravenhill and was at the Glasgow match. The rest is rubbish. It’s not too late to vote though.
Corrections, comments or questions?