Ulster’s league form continues to spiral out of control as we now hit the worst series of league results in our brief history of Celtic League rugby. One win and one draw and ten defeats in the last twelve league games just about says it all really and last night, like oh too many nights this season, it was our tactical naivety and poor decision making that that let us down yet again.
It appears to me that the management agree on a pre-match strategy for each game and irrespective of what they subsequently witness out on the park they to continue to follow their pre-arranged tactics come hell or high water.
Take the subbing of Kyriacou and Fitzpatrick. In normal circumstances it would have been a reasonable option to bring on Brady and Botha early in the first half to freshen things up but on this occasion the timing was abysmal. Ulster had lost the influential Diack just before the break and Glasgow had come out at the start of the second half firing on all cylinders putting the boys under all sorts of pressure. Not the time to start messing about with our main sources of possession, line out and scrum, and definitely not the time to bring fresh faces into our defensive alignment.
I’d said before the game that whoever controlled the line outs would win the game and up till these substitutions Ulster were well in the game with their dominance in the line out giving them a definite edge. Afterwards the supply of ball dried up and Parks was able to control the game with his tactical kicking.
If Ulster had played the game that unfolded in front of them they would have kept this pair on for at least a further ten minutes until Ulster had weathered the storm of the Glasgow fight back and I suspect that if it had been Best playing as hooker that is exactly what they would have done.
This brings me to the more worrying aspect of Ulster’s decline since the start of the season, namely a certain favouritism towards some members of the squad and a lack of faith in others irrespective of what form is shown on the pitch and this appears to have undermined whatever confidence there was in the squad at the start of the season.
At the start of the season our back row and our front row were performing well and winning games but one bad game, ironically against Glasgow, and players were dropped and to me unfit marquee players were parachuted in. As a result the previous good work in team building and squad development was undone and players like Kyraicou, Brady, Young, Fitzpatrick, Humphreys, Faloon, Anderson, Tuohy, Whitten, Nagusa and Schifcofske were reduced to bit part players as the season disintegrated.
Irrespective of what super signings are made for next season, no team can afford to overlook, or more correctly, to show lack of faith in such a large part of their squad and it comes across as an irritable teacher disciplining naughty schoolboys. Add to that the rumours that two of our best performing players are told they are not good enough for Ulster, but ironically good enough for the European Champions, and it’s not hard to see why the season has unravelled so dramatically.
Now this is not a call for a change of management, as such a call would be as petulant as how the management appear to be acting. Let’s face it, us Ulster supporters are “World Class” at purulent, hysterical overreaction from people who have very little feel for the game of rugby. No, it’s really a call for a bit of faith in Team Ulster (by Team Ulster I mean players and coaches) and that faith must be shown by the coaches as much as by the supporters.
Few in Team Ulster are performing to their ability and that goes double for the coaching team, but wholesale changes are not the answer. A bit of trust and encouragement to all members of Team Ulster allowing them to perform to the best of their their ability is what is required.
Consider young Nevin Spence who had a bit of a nightmare start last night. However, he was trusted by the coaches and encouraged by his team mates and the youngster pulled through. I think everyone in Team Ulster has shown enough at the start of the season to be trusted and encouraged. They will pull through! Won’t they?
Let us know your thoughts below. If enough of you vote I’ll try and bring it up at the AGM on Wednesday.
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12 Responses to “Glasgow 25 Ulster 18”
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“and it comes across as an irritable teacher disciplining naughty schoolboys.” Exactly but then again that is what we have, a school teacher on a two year sabbatical coaching a professional team with a back up team of novices and no defence coach, and you wonder why we our in the worse slump of form in the League…..At the start of the season Management set targets they were to get out of the group stages of the HC… FAILED…They were to get into the play-offs for the league…FAILED… and now qualification to next years HC is under real threat by an underfunded, under supported Connacht who have shown more rugby skills, qualification to the HC was almost guaranteed each year due to the gulf between ourselves and Connacht now that doesn’t even exist.. Best team in the world I would settle for the 3rd best team in Ireland at the moment…. we still might qualify for the HC but whither we do or don’t changes have to be made in the coaching set up, no sense in having world class players in BJ, Rush, Muller, Ferris and Pienaar(if he comes)coached by amateurs…..
I agree with Mark, professional sports is a results business if you don’t get the results you either go or be sacked …….. Simples
Dewi …. I agree McL has no plan b. The replacement of Fitzy and Andi K shows he has no feel whatsoever for the game and is playing from a manual.
Now 16 league games in a row where we have failed to outscore the oposition in the last 20 minutes. Who is the fitness coach?
Professional game….semi-professional coaching….amateur administration and organisation. Not rocket science.
The Players you have identified are all second string bar Ian Humphreys — who if the blinkers were removed was never going to an answer for Ulster on the retirement of his brother.
would you rank either of the two hookers above Best
Young and Fitzpatrick above Court and Botha
Faloon and Anderson above Pollock and Diack or Henry
Whitten above Wallace
Nagusa above Trimble
I doubt very much as to whether selection is based on Favorites
I was of the opinion when T Bowe left he realised that with out David Humphries the Ulster backs where going to struggle on two counts — firstly and inexperienced pack and a light weight outhalf.
The difference between the two teams on Friday night was Parks who given the opportunity put points on the board.
Glasgow only scored one try which is basically to be expected in the modern game due to the difficulty in recovering possession and or turning the ball over without being penalised.
If one analyses the squads available in the Magners league the top four must be Leinster Munster Ospreys and Cardiff the squads have an abundance of Internationals and players with four five years experience.
The rest of the teams make up the numbers and each given the opportunity is capable of getting a result playing each other but the crux is Ulster have the least experienced backrow in the Magners League and the experience in the second row is not much better,
But the real difficulty is at out half when the fans have a serious bias against O’Connor and are unwilling to allow him to develop properly at this level because really only by playing at ML level will his short comings become identifible
and corrective action taken.
I thought Edinburgh and Glasgow had a fair number of internationals available to them what was your analysis of them?
If you actually knew something about Rugby rather than recycle your favourite hobby horse then you would realise that the sum of the whole can be greater than the parts.
Those player that you disparage as not good enough put together a good run at the start of the season when they were playing for the shirt, ie they played as a team rather than individuals.
The return of the marquee players has seen some good individual performances but, for whatever reason, we have failed to recapture the team ethos that was present at the start.
The question was asked, “would you rank either of the two hookers above Best” Yes considering Best hadn’t played all season and both Andy and Brady had done an admirable job up till then,Rory should have been eased back in to the team with the odd 15-20 minute stint from the bench not given the starting spot without proving himself, he has been a shadow of the player that he was last season and is it any wonder… Bad man-management in the treatment of Rory and the 2 hookers who had played well up till then…….
Absolutely spot on Mark – couldn’t agree more or put it better myself.
If one accepts that Best is an International Hooker and a near cert for a summer tour then it is essential he gets as much game time as possible
Now there are those who will say that Ulsters lineout only started to malfunction when best returned I don’t actual put that down to Best but down to a disorganised line out which was trying to confuse the opposition.
both Glasgow and Edinburgh have a number of Scottish Internationals both clubs have reasonable forwards who can match most packs both sides have also reasonable outhalfs and place kickers but their backlines are lacking flair and pace to actually capitalise on possession — thus both sides frequentally revert to the pass inside from the outhalf to a backrow coming at pace to forge the initial gap.
look at the score lines of the matches between Ulster and Glasgow Ulster Edinburgh over the last couple of seasons the result has frequental been down to points score from penalties or drop goals.
Ulster find both sides difficult to beat due to a lack of possession in the opposition half . Winning games against them requires the ability to keep the ball in the oppossion half of the pitch.
Ulsters run since christmas matbe some one would like to actual identify the number of games Ulster have played without a Scottish referee ? because I can hardly remember the last game without one .
Absolutely spot on Ed.
Throughout the first half of the season there was a real vibrancy, terrific team spirit and buckets of passion …. Resulting in some fabulous performances with Ravenhill rockin’ (remember them?).
Then, post December, players who were playing out of their skin suddenly didn’t figure in future plans and surprise surprise, the rot set in.
After such a bright start, it’s such a shame for all supporters and those players who have been badly treated.
well I actually cheched it out since the 19th Feb every Ulster game have been refereed by a Scottish Ref P Allen 3 times N Patterson twice and Andy Mac once
I just wonder to what extent the team suffer a morale collaspse when walking into the dressing room knowing they face an evening inconstancy.
Having faced it the week before
of course it is much easier to be firing on all cyclinders when you have everything to play for but once Ulster failed to make the Amlin when having a better record than at least two teams that made it by virtue of bonus points playing weaker opposition then the morale was bound to suffer similiarly the lack of game time during the Internationals doesn’t help since it only allows the disappointment to fester longer without a outlet for revenge.
But i would still accept as reasonable that at the start of the season Ulster where punching above their weight in several games and the potential for imploding was evident in the first game against the Dragons. a performance easily forgotten by some .
How come Ulster always get a Scottish ref? the osprey v dragons game at rodney parade had nigel owens as ref they didn’t need someone from outside wales….
when trimble got spear tackled owens who was on the line flagged it and pointed it to the Scottish ref and surprise surprise no card only a penalty for ulster, never seen a player tackle this way and stay on the pitch.
Ulster players are at an all time low and then every monday they have to watch where they have gone wrong, maybe time to watch the replays of the games they have won like scarlets, bath and stade home games and forget about all the negatives.