We’re Still in the Game!

We’re still in the game… One can imagine a stern faced Davidson punching his forwards on Monday morning whilst repeating this message like a mantra.

Edinburgh continued the media peddled one try per match scoring ratio as they tottered to the win yesterday. In the process yielding up an invaluable losing bonus point to their opponents which may in the end prove the difference at the top of what is shaping up to be a tight group.

I said in Friday’s article Tomorrow Belongs to Us that:

Our season so far has been more hit than miss but lose tomorrow and we could be talking an inconsistent team who shine 60% of the time but retreat to the shadows when under intense pressure. Tomorrow will define whether we have the bottle, the nous and the plain bloody mindedness to go and scratch out a win whilst maintaining our self belief.

We are 60%, as foretold, but yesterday I felt we showed bottle, nous and plain bloody mindedness by taking the losing bonus point. More than once in the past we have committed percentage suicide by attempting to run out of our own territory in an attempt to secure the win. In the process we have finished up with nothing more than a collective hangover, a what might have been sick note and irate supporters. There were irate supporters at the Rosie, none more so than old Annadalian Ding Dong whose visage encapsulated a thousand years of rugby frustration.

Yet yesterday we were pragmatic enough to realise that a losing bp would suffice for the travails we suffered over the closing 20 minutes when the management made yet another of those horrible tactical substitutions. They removed four fifths of the front five and must have gulped at the sight of our scrum creaking horribly on the goal line as Edinburgh turned the screw.

At this level little key moments define the course of games. The seminal moment arrived Ulster missed a key kick to put us up 16 – 6 and Edinburgh realised that they could run the ball back at us rather than carrying on a kicking conversation. Our heads dropped with that kick by Ian Humph, which missed virtually in front of the posts. We found ourselves defending a 7 point lead rather than a 10 point lead which I feel we would have closed out.  Just as in the previous game at Ravenhill a missed kick gave rise to hope for the opposition as we continued to hoof the ball away without ever making sure it stayed in Edinburgh’s half.

Bath lost to Stade today, a bad result for us though we still lie second.  In this game key moments defined that result and ours and Bath’s season. There was failure to bin the Danny De Vito lookalike Roncero after he’d persistently fallen all over the ball at the ruck, three times. A stray boot meant Bath lost control of the ball near the Stade line and the chance of a drop goal was missed with Little forced to drop from further out than he would have liked. Had he dropped the goal, the difference in points would have been nine and a target for the Bath pack to defend. He didn’t and it sat at six points before a try and then a late penalty left Stade the winners.

So stray boots, refereeing indecision, millimetres in missed kicks and the psychological pressure that comes with defending a narrow lead all combine to make the game at European level one of delineated percentages to a fine degree. The best make a better percentage of those calls right than the average teams. Ulster showed yesterday that they are getting to grips with this kind of pressure even if the coaching staff made a few more daft calls.

This will stand us in good stead for what will be another pressure cooker game next Saturday night. There is room for improvement in the way we put the ball down the line but were unable to challenge Edinburgh’s lineout from the resulting throw and our own lineout stuttered. Ryan Caldwell is a penalty machine, unfortunately for the benefit of the opposition and we simply cannot sacrifice that number of points and turnover in possession. Either he plays in a controlled manner or someone else with safer temperament plays in his place.

Watching Caldwell at ruck time is like being in the back seat of a car with a particularly nervous learner driving. There was really little excuse for kicking the ball back to Edinburgh willy nilly and giving the impression that we were happy defending a seven point lead with 20 minutes to go. If we are going to defend that sort of lead then we must control where and when we defend the return of the ball.

Can only hope another lesson has been learned. I’m not downhearted as we salvaged a point in a game we could just have easily lost irrevocably and the management appear to take lessons on board. As the reporter in the ST said, ‘on the evidence of the home’s team performance they (Ulster) mightn’t be the last team to founder on the rocks of Murrayfield.’ Too true, let’s hope Stade come up short as well, though they look to be in the driving seat.

As BJ Botha might say, ‘We’re still in the game!’