Who Plays the Tinkerman?

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Brian McLaughlin. Picture by rugbypicture.co.uk

Depending on the quantities in your glass, (half full or half empty), Ulster’s season has either resembled a train crash of catastrophic proportions or resolutely remains unfulfilled but still promising.

I’m a glass half full sort and looking dispassionately at Ulster’s performances it should read as 3 games lost away from home in Wales and one at home. The referee performance was the most prominent aspect of the Ospreys loss and can be dismissed as an aberration; the loss at home to Treviso was perhaps the most abject.

I was going to mention my ‘inside the home dressing room’ source for this but in reality one of the rugby cronies mentioned the coaches tinkering as raison d’etre for Ulster’s inconsistency.

He pointed to Ulster’s performance against Harlequins at the beginning of the season. McGlocks tinkered with the team that played so well then by breaking up the 2nd row combo of Stevenson and McComb and bringing in Tuohy.

Oddly enough we subsequently saw a messageboard post from a credible source asking was Tuohy a show pony? The source ‘close to the home dressing room’ pointed to ruck statistics for Tuohy of 12 rucks joined in a match. Compared to Stevenson’s 31, they asked was this evidence of management instructions to Tuohy which the player’s weren’t aware?

The messenger was credible and therefore leant weight to the post but what one asks is the point of such a post which suggested the management were keeping others blind of Tuohy’s role. It scarcely seems credible that a player would be asked to perform a certain role in a match and nobody else playing with him knows what it is.

What allows such manifestations of paranoia to fester is the constant swapping about of players and changing of combinations. In other words tinkering, that doesn’t allow players to settle.

At some point McLaughlin is going to have to decide how he wants Ulster’s game to develop in a consistent fashion and to do this he must settle on his first choice team before too long.

For sure the PRO 12 isn’t won in October but a run of four consecutive defeats leads one to wonder what is unsettling the team to the extent that some of those defeats have appeared almost as abject surrender.

With the visit of Connaught followed by Clermont we need to consolidate, now that the returnees from the World cup have, (most at any rate), been given a run out. The phoney war is over, it’s time to turn up the heat and turn on the style.

A Rabbit and a Kiwi Sucker Punch

Quicker than the blink of an eyelid and sup of a pint, Ulster Rugby announced, with all the haste of an economist finding a 0.15 percentage rise in industrial output in a recession, that their prized Kiwi was on his way to Ulster from NZ.

Stefan Terblanche was the rabbit, sorry Springbok from a hat, as replacement for Jared Payne.

Is David Humphreys Ulster Rugby’s version of the President Sarkozy? The French Prsident is a veritable political grandstander, a man for the big stage who hogs the political headline and the spotlight.

Just as the ‘Ulster in crisis’ choir reached perfect pitch, so the maestro Humph produced a masterstroke to defuse the growing chorus of unease.

Will it be Enough?

We simply cannot afford to lose on Saturday, nor can we afford to tinker any more. Neither should we continually cast a sideways glance at Leinster and Munster and try to keep up with the Joneses.

We must carve our own identity as we did up until the latter half of this last decade when we decided that Leinster/Munster where the bench mark.

Repeat, we are not Leinster or Munster, we are ULSTER, for gawd’s sake get it into your heads, we are ULSTER! We can start afresh and carve our identity with pride this Saturday.

My ‘source’ or the rugby crony remarked on Ulster’s lack of commitment. I believe we have the commitment and we need to find it over the coming month.

Can You Hear The Silence?

Following last week’s PPC blog article, (that’s Positive, Publicity, Campaign), on the URSC, and its Supreme commander Kimble, I have received threats of legal action against further publicity, from Kimble himself.

‘No CIGARS,’ chortled Kimble, as mein offer of 10 cans of freshly brewed Guinness, were ruthlessly guttybooted underfoot in a piteous attempt to demonstrate he is impervious to bribes.

So until the threat of legal embargo is lifted, this column will remain silent on all things pertaining to the Supporters Club.

Quintessential Front Row Union

Following my pathetic attempts in last week’s article to discover the essence of Craigavon and Larne, I will focus on the essence of the Front Row Union, (FRU).

I was in Larne on business last week, by the way, but conspicuously failed to discern a core essence that could be deemed quintessential.

In searching out the quintessence of the FRU I am on slightly surer ground. Ulster and Ireland’s Rory Best is for me the quintessential front row man. Not flashy at hooker, (there’s no blond mane bobbing about), just a bald pate or more recently a crash helmet, usually crouched low running into contact or hitting those rucks in an unspectacular but effective manner.

Most of all Rory does the basics very well, although hitting a rough patch with his throwing arm not so long ago, he has recovered and is back to his Best with the darts.

He is by all accounts a good scrummager and does the hooking role well in the modern game, though there is some doubt whether hooking the ball is still a skill given the crooked put-in’s by the scrum halves.

Give me the tough hombre that is Rory Best over any of the other hookers in the modern game, who may be more flashy with the spectacular carries, but can be less consistent or effective in the basics.

Step forward Rory Best, Parky’s quintessential front row man. Endorsed by the inimitable Johann Muller as a potential Ireland captain.

New Arrivals

No there isn’t a birth imminent but there will be two hombre staying at the Parky bunker during the Clermont weekend. Sadly Le Paul, the head of the French wing of the URSC, such as it is, has had a dreadful work accident and is currently recuperating at his home in the Vienne in France. He’s unable to walk and unable to come over to Ravenhill for the Clermont game.

The two hombre in question are Monsieur Jean Luc and Welshman Phil Baker. Hopefully the URSC might lay on a welcome for this intrepid pair who made it to Milton Keynes in May this year to support Ulster.

Arrangements are still a little sketchy but with any luck we’ll be able to welcome our guests and show them a bit of Belfast and Ulster hospitality of which we are famously proud. I will update in the next blog prior to the arrival of the French based duo, on arrangements for match day and hope you will join me in a drink or two with our intrepid duo.


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