Ulster's heroes Spence and D'Arcy. Picture from bbc.co.uk
If Carlsberg made rugby weekends I guess they would cough up something similar to this weekend delivered by the Heineken Cup.
I must have been the only person who was happy that the 8:50am EasyJet from Belfast to Bristol was cancelled as, forced to work, I was going to miss the trip and loose my flights. However an hour after the supposed departure I received an email offering me a complete refund for the cancelled flight. Happy days indeed!
Still working on Saturday, but I managed to swing a couple of hours off in the afternoon and slushed my way down to the Eagle where, arriving a few minutes late, I found Ulster to be trailing by 5.
Oh me of little faith, as I ordered my coke and sat down for what promised to be a long afternoon of grumbles and gripes as a powerful Bath overpowered a weak and weedy Ulster – well at least that’s the impression I got from the commentary on Sky!
Shame on Tyrone, but I sat there fuming as he and his cohort drooled over the Aviva Premier side as if they were a team of cheerleaders at Holywood Mike’s 50th birthday party. Even the simplest of tasks from the home side were greeted with almost orgasmic outbursts by the Sky duo with Ulster overlooked like dowdy unathletic wallflowers.
Now if Bath were playing well I suppose there would have been some excuse but the fact was that after the opening quarter the English side were reduced to basic thuggery and intimidation as their only real tactics with spoilt brat Butch James the thug in chief.
It’s a shame how what was once one of the most exciting, attacking sides, of the amateur era has been reduced to the role of playground bullies in professional times and it’s particularly sad that such a great bunch of supporters are expected to get behind such limited dross week after week. The club history, the city, the supporters and one of the best settings in world rugby deserves better from their team.
I effed and blinded my way through the rest of the match, indeed getting quite irate as first James and then Fernandez Lobbe resorted to their underhand tactics! But at least my histrionics attracted the attention of the other punters in the bar and by the end of the game quite a few had turned their attention to Ulster’s plight!
How pleasing it was therefore that Ulster refused to respond in kind and concentrated in grinding out the win and it was particularly edifying that the youngest player on the pitch scored the decisive try. It wasn’t a great match, it was exciting, but certainly not a classic. Ulster, however, can take a great deal out of the win by standing up to and eventually dominating a side determined to batter them figuratively and literally.
As I said, not a great game, but maybe a season defining one. Bring on Biarritz!
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