Almost exactly 3 years ago, Harlequins hosted Leinster in a HEC quarter-final, in a match which was to become notorious for ‘Bloodgate’. For Leinster, however, it was significant for a different reason; the supposed pretty boys of Irish rugby, with the ‘soft underbelly’, won ugly, 6-5, due to an outstanding and uncompromising defensive performance, with no substitutions, in a match in which they were under the cosh almost from start to finish from a Quins side which totally dominated possession and territory.
Does that sound familiar at all? After the match on the weekend, our performance in Limerick reminded me of nothing more than that match.
Leinster had lost away to Wasps and Castres in the group stages, and despite playing some great Elsom-inspired rugby, there were still question marks about their ability to dig deep and eke out victories the way Munster had over the previous couple of seasons. This was the result which showed that they had the defensive system, and probably more importantly, the bottle, to win big matches, rather than relying on fancy stuff.
For Ulster, the question marks leading into the quarter-finals were less around a perception of a ‘soft underbelly’, with our pack widely acknowledged to be a pretty physical, streetwise bunch, but more around a real winning mentality through the team – the self-belief and mental fortitude to back ourselves against quality opposition, particularly away from home, and come out on top. And while we creaked at times, we did it…
It wasn’t good for the nerves, and it would have been nice to see us getting hold of the ball for at least some portions of the second half to relieve the pressure, but sometimes matches are like that, particularly away from home – you have to take your points where you can and then your defence has to front up.
To go back to the Leinster-Quins match again, Quins had 5 clean breaks and 15 defenders beaten, compared with 2 and 1 respectively for Leinster, and Quins made 60 tackles compared with 151 for Leinster – the reason Quins had to resort to ‘Bloodgate’ in desperation was in order to get a crocked Nick Evans back on the pitch to try to score a drop-goal – they had been tackled to standstill and all else had failed. Likewise, with the one exception of the Zebo try, Munster were forced from side to side, going backwards with ball in hand at least as often as going forwards, and while I have yet to rewatch the match, I’m sure that for all that the last quarter was completely nerve-wracking to watch live, our defence had given us the upper hand and largely throttled their belief by that stage.
So is this match Ulster’s Quins moment? We’ll have to see – as a reminder of what happened next for Leinster, they went on to win the HEC twice in the next 3 seasons!
To be clear I’m not saying that we are anywhere near that far down the road, and one wonders what the score might have been if Ulster had ceded over 70% of possession and territory to Leinster or Clermont Auvergne, one of whom we would meet in the final were we to overcome Edinburgh in the semi; but this was a massive performance and result for Ulster, and let’s hope it will be the game-changer that we have needed to kick on after a long period of under-achievement.
Corrections, comments or questions?