Bit late this week – I just don’t know where the weekends go. I didn’t even have a ladies game to cover on Sunday what with Letterkenny crying off so I ended up watching an abysmally stupid Bath loose to a not very impressive Biarritz which did make me think that Ulster’s performance on Friday night wasn’t as bad as I’d originally thought!
Yes, I know, unbeaten in six games now, bonus point win in the Heineken Cup opener and still we’re unhappy. It is indeed worrying – not so much the performance of the team more the consistent level of crabbiness of the supporters. Friday’s crowd was definitely the most surly I’ve witnessed for a long time. In fact, the last time I witnessed such a surly crowd was when I was sitting (and dancing and cheering) amongst the family and friends of Munster players as an Ian Humphreys inspired Ulster absolutely humped the home team.
Looking back at that game and looking at the current performances the contrasts are indeed stark. Against Munster we saw an Ulster team operating at the top of their game with pace and precision and a few lucky bounces as they destroyed one of Europe’s finest in their own back yard.
On Friday night it was more a case of bludgeoning our opponents into submission as we walloped at them time and time again breaking their resistance and on occasion rapping our own knuckles with our large blunt instrument!
Of course we all know that the Munster game was an aberrant flash in the pan, a level of performance that we could not recreate, a blip in an otherwise downwards spiral of inconsistency but I know what game I’ll remember as I sit dribbling in some anonymous nursing home waiting for those visitors that never come!
Certainly frustration in Ulster’s performance seemed to be the general consensus from those surrounding me. Frequent gasps of dissatisfaction from the Omagh massif, to my left, accompanied by more forthright comments from Mr Ponty, to my right, with only the naively innocent twins from Boys on Tour happy with their plight as they grinned and gurgled their way through another match.
Ulster’s was not a bad performance but it was certainly a frustrating one with so many points left on the pitch through over anxious fumbling and failure to spot openings. Too, too many thought they could win the game on their own!
Maybe the teams frustrating performance is all a cunning plan from Shane “The Dominator” Logan to increase bar takings as the bar was certainly hit throughout this match, even moving on to the vino tinto in preparation for our stay in San Seb next weekend and it was to this adventure that thoughts turned immediately after the match.
It’ll be a completely different prom I’ll be sunning myself on next Friday night – hopefully the pictures will be a bit better!
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