With only one win in the last seven league games it appears that Ulster have fully embraced their, now habitual, end of season slump. It’s particularly disappointing this season as, with end of season playoffs, there was still something meaningful to compete for this time round.
Add in Ulster’s improved form in the Heineken Cup and the slump is even more difficult to fathom as the ability is there but, outside of a few big matches, the application has been missing. That vital blend of team work and confidence has disappeared on too many occasions and, while it would be easy to point the finger at individual players, for me the problem is a bit more involved.
In my opinion the management has to take a fair proportion of the blame. The players are not inspired to compete to their fullest extent in these mundane matches and to me it looks as though a lot of enjoyment has been taken out of the game as they’re being asked to dog out games with the intention of not losing, rather than being asked to go out and win.
Ulster have always had a fairly light weight pack and while it needs to be competitive, it shouldn’t be expected to get in a dog fight week after week as, unless we’re exceptionally motivated, most sides will out muscle us up front. We need to play more to our strengths rather than try to negate the strengths of other teams and our strengths are our mobile pack and a great set of backs. This seems to be overlooked in our game plans as match after match we try to play for territory. As it stands we’re a less talented version of Ireland and as Ireland must change their game plan to live with the big boys so must Ulster if we’re going to get full value out of our assets.
It would be easy to imagine the management thinking that, with Muller and Rush on board for next season, Ulster will be able to play this positional game and that’s the way we’re going to play until then. While they will undoubtedly be much more competitive with this pair available it’ll still be a shocking waste of talent if that’s the limit of our ambitions.
After the crap served up, by both sides, in Cardiff it’s time for Ulster to raise their game and they should take some warning from the pitiful attendance at Cardiff Stadium. Supporters are going to continue to vote with their feet and if Ulster are going to buck the trend it’s time someone grew a pair and served us up a team prepared to play fast attacking rugby we can be proud of.
You can read a slightly skewed match report on Ulster Rugby here or if you are up to it you can catch the full match on BBC iPlayer here. The iPlayer is only available until 9:59pm Friday 2nd April 2010.
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3 Responses to “Cardiff 19 Ulster 9”
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Llanelli – Cardiff – Newport ALL disasterous results for us in South Wales, least the Ospreys game in sept gave us one out of four !!
Very poor performance for the travelling support on friday night.
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while the Ulster pack may me mobile in order to exercise any advantage from that requires possession against Cardiff and the Dragons possession from the lineout was never guaranteed and seldom clean
Having watched the Cardiff game it is my conclusion that Ulster expect their line out to put under pressure and lack confidence in their own ability and instead of concentrating on jumping and lifting are far to interested in trying to confuse the opposition with dummy runs and jumps thus when the ball is thrown nobody in the Ulster side is actually ready for the ball.
The other factor in the Cardiff game was the early penalisation of the Ulster line out for a crooked throw ( 1st Ulsterline out) which wasn’t crooked at all but was adecision in line with Scottish Refereeing based on the blowing of the whistle not for an infringement which has occurred but an infringement the referee expects to occur.ie R Best was penalised the week before for crooked throws Ryan Cardwell has been carded previously for hands in — ie ulster are being refereed on the basis of their record not on the play during the game.
Give a dog a bad name and then act accordingly with the whistle
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two different teams playing two different styles of rugby, the former fast, skillful, enterprising, entertaining and wonderful to watch, the latter clueless, boring, error strewn and hard to endure, of course i’m talking about Ulster this season pre/post the game at the Rec. BMcL and the coaching set up get it sorted, we are going backwards at a rate of knots that has seen us going from 2nd top to 3rd from bottom with Connacht within touching distance for the HC spot…. Time to earn your money and put a bit of pride back into the team….
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