Wham, bam, thank you mam – three on the bounce and top of the league. Another fun filled Friday at the Fortress!
Attempted to get this Friday to kick off early, leaving the house just before six and expecting to be at Ravers for half past. Unfortunately excessive traffic and a bit of a detour meant I didn’t get there till nearly half seven, nearly half an hour late for my meeting with our new ace reporter RugbyRambler. A quick chat about the forthcoming weeks activities and then time to get stuck into the amber nectar in preparation for a couple of hours singing and shouting!
A few meet and greets with the great and the good of Ulster’s supporters and off we scampered for our now customary spot on the Prom. We’ll I say customary spot, but after two matches this season with the new barrier arrangements I think we’re going to have to change our location due to incessant traffic throughout the game.
We’d carefully chosen our spot on the Aquinas end 22, handy for the toilets and the new beer dispensing trailer, but due to the now limited access to the Prom our prime location does suffer unduly with late arrivals squeezing past or even worse standing straight in front! What’s worse again is that these late arrivals all seem to have been late as they have just been to Ikea and bought some flat packed piece of kitchen or bathroom tat and then decide to spend the first half telling their equally late friends all about it!
Maybe it’s time for Ulster to work a sponsorship agreement with the Scandinavian home-ware giants and set up a little flat pack display area round the back of the stand where these nattering ninnies can practice their assembly techniques and feast on blue cheese salads and roll mop herring – they’re certainly not interested in the game!
Fortunately though, the match soon captured all the attention with Ulster getting off to a storming start with Trimble banging one in the corner after two minutes. Whitten finished off a nice move after twenty minutes and it looked as though Ulster were going to run way with it. It was good to see the scrums back on form with Bryan “The Laminator” Young and Andi “The Greek Adonis” Kyriacou having great games in the tight and the loose.
Edinburgh held in there through the boot of Paterson and the second half was a bit scrappy with Ulster not finishing as strongly as they should. Rory still with the yips, and at the mo Kyriacou and Brady are really pushing for Heineken Cup starts. I was disappointed that Diack was taken off for Wannenburg as Robbie is head and shoulders our quality No. 8 and Pedrie looks better when he’s at 6 so it’s an ideal opportunity to manage him and Ferris for a long season ahead. Henry showed a huge improvement on last week and Willie now has genuine competition. We must now have the best strength in depth at second row in the league with a big step up from Caldwell and McLaughlin’s getting more decisions right than wrong.
A special mention for the much overlooked Darren Cave who had another great game, scoring his second try of the season to ease our nerves going into the final ten minutes. The quiet centre is hitting a rich vein of form, encapsulated with his nice show and go, and if he keeps this up he could be Ulster’s man of the season despite the big name signings.
After the game it was off t the Scoop Bar to meet up with Ulster and Ireland’s Eliza Downey and her mates. The Downster is enjoying a bit of R & R after her World Cup exploits but always the competitor is looking forward to getting back playing again in a couple of weeks after her IRFU enforced rest. It’s a busy weekend for the girls as they’re all off to Croke Park on Sunday to support their home county against Cork and with a bit of luck we’ll get to hear all about it in her blog next week.
Good luck to Down From The FRU.
More like this:
2 Responses to “View from the Prom. Ulster v Edinburgh.”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Agree with you about the Prom Dewi. Stood there once last season and never again for the reasons you mentioned. Latecomers, sometimes 5 minutes into the game barging in front of you, virtually taking the toes of your feet and then chatting away as if they’ve just met one another in victoria Square.
BTW: The Terrace needs a beer cart at the Aquinas end.
Rate this comment. Like or dislike?
0 
0
Thought Caldwell played a blinder. Now there’s something I never thought I’d type! Hopefully he has risen to the challenge of the quality of competition he faces for a second row slot. Dewi, did that blonde woman get her kitchen sorted in the end?
Rate this comment. Like or dislike?
0 
0