On Saturday morning my brother called me up and said, his winter road cycle would be mine if I wanted to collect. Compared to the one I had been pedalling round County Down for the last 9 months this was like buying a MPV after driving about in a tank!
It was near 2.00pm when I got back to Ballygowan and I was excited to try out this exotic machine, with its clicking handlebars gearing, racey looks and superior speed.
Mindful that the Ulster match was showing at 3.15pm I decided to pedal forth and try to get used to the gearing and the lower handlebar position etc. The sun was shining and soon I was going at a rate of knots through the countryside bathed in luxurious, oft times forgotten warmth
I turned my back on this idyll and headed for home reaching the bunker at about 3.05 and expectantly switched to BBCni expecting to see a match. It was not to be, the technical problem comment allied to infrequent score updates remained stubbornly in place on the screen.
As we now know Ulster snatched it at the death leaving Treviso gutted and inconsolable.
It’s happened to Ulster so many times in the past, I guess it’s due reward for our new improved mental resolve.
When the Treviso match ended I decided to ride out again to get some further practice on the cycle before my regular Sunday spin. The push bike reminds me of Ulster at the moment, not quite top notch but a lot better than we were used to.
Having finally finished Alan Quinlan’s book, ‘Red blooded’ I have mixed feelings about it.
It falls between two stools as part recounting of Munster and Ireland games when Quinlan played for them, and part his psychological well being as a rugby player with mental problems to conquer.
Whatever the dual faceted nature of it, Quinlan has fine eye for the minutiae of rugby. His latest column in the Irish Times contained a summation of what could easily be Ulster over the years:
If bad luck is affecting you, you can’t be waiting on good luck to come along and make it right. You have to turn it around yourself.
I have to believe these last couple of seasons we have been surmounting that particular psychological problem. The Treviso match was perhaps living proof of that.
Let’s hope this new sleeker model Ulster, like my latest cycle will take us to places we have not been before.
Fall Guys Abound
Since I last blogged I visited the Errigle for the Ireland v England St. Patrick’s Day rugby bash. The English match was a crushing disappointment with Ireland’s scrum coming under all sorts of dubious pressure, with Tom Court falling on the pre sharpened knives of most Irish rugby hacks.
What the hack do they expect when poor old Tom C spends most of his match time at loosehead, (for Ulster), gets 10 minutes at the end of an international match, to practice his tighthead technique and then fades under the pressure of a scrummaging technique that was probably illegal but passes muster in the modern game.
I know nothing about scrummaging despite many years peering into a scrum from the blindside but it seems to me that it’s a bit of a lottery in the referees dictum of whistle blowing.
So much for the IRB’s attempt to reduce it to a means of re-starting a match, here in the Northern Hemisphere at least it becomes a weapon of offence for use in demoralising your opponents.
I recall playing in more than a few games when the first 3 scrums told you whether the pack were under pressure and it was going to be a long day at the office in the backs with tackly practice paramount or you would feel 2 feet taller behind a rampant forward effort
A scrum going forward was an outhalf’s dream as he received that little bit of time that made all of a difference in picking his options.
To quote Quinlan again:
People sometimes wonder what’s the big deal when it comes to scrums. Well, it’s this – scrums can dictate the tempo of the game and if one side is constantly retreating in the scrum, they won’t win. Simple as that. Not just because points will be conceded through penalties and penalty tries like they were on Saturday but because very few things in rugby dent a team’s confidence like a scrum that is getting taken to bits.
Still an integral part of the game thank heavens!
Ferris Wheel Keeps on Turning
Steven Ferris didn’t get man of the match in any of the five games he played in, yet was influential in most, despite Ireland playing to only half his strengths.
Ireland use him mainly in an offensive defensive role with his tackle count stratospheric. Yet he is so much more an effective ball carrier than Paul O’Connell for example.
For me Ferris was the rock on which more than a few international reputations perished but Ireland are not maximising his strengths.
Like Ferris, Andy T does not appear to play his natural club game. Perhaps having to accommodate Tommy Bowe on the right is disruptive. Or maybe it is the different role demanded of him by Ireland.
Either way the game at times appears to pass him by as do the passes with the inside players frequently turning inside or being wrapped up
Unlike Ferris, Andy T is unable to rise above this situation with the result he appears ineffectual at times and at other times, all at sea. You have to feel for him, he is not the player in a green shirt that he is for Ulster and you have to wonder why.
Ulster Connaughtonians
Willie Faloon has been ‘captured’ by Connaught. Let’s hope he fairs better than the previous Ulstermen that made their way there last year.
Not one of messers O’Connor, McCrea or Anderson appeared on the bench for last Saturday’s match with Munster never mind the team.
In fact Connaught have sent O’Connor a message by signing the metronomic Parks. Not that the southern press are getting all worked up about an Irish qualified player being displaced or anything like that.
One of Those Old Horror Movies
‘O’Gara will not go quietly into the night, I plan to play until I’m 38…. some old archaic and not very well Munster fans may well react with the necessary whoops of delight.
For the rest of us there is an element of seeing a draconian old monster refusing to lie down and retire to the elephant’s graveyard. It’s a terrible thought the old devil still telling the world or the Irish Times why he should be picked for Ireland in 2018!!!!!
Corrections, comments or questions?