Ulster's Nevin Spence goes over for Ulster second try. Picture from BBC Sports.
Been a bit under the weather this week so had to give the trip to Ravers a miss unfortunately. Though after viewing the rain lashed hordes on the Prom it was probably the right decision to stay at home with a pizza and Sauvignon Blanc to tell the truth, even if I did get a few texts telling me I’m not a real supporter any more having missed two home games already this season!
Unfortunately it looks as though I wasn’t the only one not to turn up as for long periods of the first half it appeared that Treviso were back in Italy so lacklustre was their showing at Ravenhill. While the five points will come in handy it was unfortunate that Ulster scored so freely during the first half finding little need to establish a game plan and in reality I think a harder work out where they had to establish a pattern and throw together a few phases would have helped and would have set them in better stead for next weekends game against Biarritz.
The first half will have given confidence to Trimble for his searing breaks and to Pienaar, D’Arcy and Spence with their scores but I hope the latter two don’t rely on their footballing skills should similar opportunities arise against the French side. Ulster certainly had the bounce of the ball but the chances of being so fortunate again are few and far apart.
Where the first half was at least exciting the second half was a bit of a disappointment, particularly as Ulster had made a few noises during the week about playing for the full eighty minutes. Instead of pushing on Ulster slipped back into their shells and relied on their defence to close out the game. With the exception of Tuohy no-one from the subs bench made much of an impact, including big Stevie. With Ulster’s minds on next week the game petered out into a bit of a nothing but at least Treviso roused themselves to score a deserved try.
I must say, I did particularly enjoy Eddie O’Sullivan’s match analysis over the last couple of games, and this is from someone who has gave him nothing but stick during his last two years in charge of Ireland, and, like my new mate Eddie, I do think Ulster will find enough to do over the temperamental French next week. What does worry me though, and I suppose it’s not a bad worry to have, is will we have developed a game plan that we can enforce over the full eighty minutes by the time we get to the European knock out stages?
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