Well that’s it for another few months, I can stand down now and focus on my cycling, art, holidays, grousebeating and DIY until the rugby starts all over again.
Can’t help but feel a certain sense of anti climax at what was once looking like a fantastic finale turned into a season of mixed fortunes and equally mixed emotions.
Farewell Brian (McGlocks), possibly goodbye Brian (ODriscoll), feck Farrelly, praise the saffers, the lord, Logan, Humph senior and all who sailed in the good ship Ulster rugby.
As I type, I feel a certain sense of loss, of having been part of an expedition that missed an opportunity, like someone who has glimpsed the summit but failed to touch the void and bridge the crevasse.
Next season will start from those tiny stirrings and reach a crescendo, hopefully not in January but more likely, late May.
It’s difficult to put my finger on what it is that makes me feel so underwhelmed. Perhaps the build up to the final had been so low key on the Ulster side.
We weren’t given a chance by the pundits or the bookies and so it proved, in the year of the underdog winning, an underdog finally lost.
The team disappeared off to Portugal for a 4 or 5 days in the sun, while we continued to shiver in the easterly wind that obliterated the warmth of the sun.
I had to remind myself it was May!
In the weeks preceding the final, we blew our chances of progressing in the Rabo PRO 12, without firing a shot in anger, especially in Galway were we subsided with barely a whimper and made an ordinary Connaught side look like play-off contenders.
In the weeks preceding the final, whilst the team sunned themselves in Portugal we had to listen to our MLA’s point their weirdly twisted fingers at golf clubs and claim they were a bastion of whispered sectarianism.
You wondered whether they inhabited middle earth, so out of touch were they with daily rigour of life, the rise in costs of food, fuel prices and all the other anathema to living.
There was little mention of Ulster’s good news story, so little mention of positivity. It was well into the ultimate week before the BBC, who were covering the final on radio, decided it merited publicity.
By that time we already knew the makeup of the Cavan team to play in the Ulster championship, Cavendish crashed on his bike, (again!), Crusaders won the Setanta cup and Mark Allen probably stuck more duct tape round his gub.
Finally the BEEB appeared to acknowledge there might be a game on that didn’t involve, Linfield, GAA or Blackpool.
Begin The Big Build Up
The bookies are usually right. If you are a business you cannot afford to be in the red too often, especially in something as tenuous as sport.
With Leinster firmly installed 1-4 as favourites, I mused whether it was necessary for Ulster to turn up before Leinster took possession of the cup.
The pundits were equally firm in their belief that this was a virtual no-match and so it you had to scrabble round, like beggars on a rubbish tip to find morsels of positivity on Ulster’s chances.
The players and of course the coaches bristled with pseudo hurt that they might not make a match of it. Like aspiring contenders in a boxing match faced with an opponent whose knockout record is almost 100%, they preferred to look away from the opposition and face a mirror into their own psyche.
For my part, deep down, I remained to be convinced. Not that I didn’t positively beg to be converted into a fully signed up 100% Ulster Heineken champions devotee.
It was just sometimes when it has to be repeated constantly that we’re not there just to make up the numbers as per Rory Best’s mantra, you actually felt he was trying to convince himself.
Blown To The Four Winds
By the time Saturday arrived I was feeling as apprehensive as a kid on a first outing using stabilisers. I busied myself with bits and pieces. A run into Comber for coffee and DIY material, wiled away a few hours.
Soon I was up a ladder painting the front of the house and staring down at strange creatures strutting round the garden a few metres below.
My initial thought was they were grouse, as they appeared to be as grounded as turkeys, with extremely birdlike features and strutted in peculiar fashion.
I thought it might be a pre final omen, and for a brief moment I summoned the ghosts of that mothballed institution, the grousebeaters. The grousebeaters some of you may recall were kind of ‘pensioners on tour’ and travelled to many of the away matches, bringing wit and wisdom to anyone that bothered to listen.
As it transpired they were guinea fowl (the birds in the garden I mean) and my opinion that they were looking for something proved absolutely correct.
They were lost!!!
Mrs Parky phoned the bird sanctuary and at least one of them was captured and returned to relative safety of a bird sanctuary in Crumlin.
By the time one guinea fowl had been incarcerated and the other flown into a nearby tree I was wedged into a tiny space staring at a distant TV screen. The only thing that really stood out initially, once West Ham had finished celebrating their win was Will Greenwood’s lime green tie.
I had opted to view the match in the Four Winds and although it was packed when I arrived and remained so through the final, it had all the atmosphere of a damp toga party.
One of my companions for the game sat half perched on the bar and yelled at the screen whilst the other stared at the weather girl Cecilia Daly for much of the second half.
There was sporadic applause when Ulster scored. Considering we only scored 14points, there were long periods of near silence enlivened only by my companion perched on the bar shouting and a few girls cheering on Leinster.
They were here for the Ulster game by and large because most folk withdrew before the champions League game began.
I retreated to the safety of my now guinea fowl free lawn and a glass of wine.
Post Mortem Blues
I considered the following day, whilst out on a long cycle ride, what more, if anything, Ulster could have done this season to make it better than we experienced.
As it transpired it really did seem the guys considered getting to the final an achievement in itself. Anything over and beyond was a bonus.
This may seem disappointing but one must consider whether Leinster would not have blown most teams away on the day. Perhaps not by a margin of 23 points, (that flattered them), but I doubt many teams would have lived with them.
Nevertheless one considers we missed opportunities to put scores on them early doors and suffered accordingly late on. That clinical edge has been missing a few times this season.
For next season – take whatever comes your way should be Ulster’s motto.
Corrections, comments or questions?