Tuesday 30 December 2014

KICKING AWFUL

Match scheduling is a real pain.

The Boxing Day (or St. Stephen’s Day, whichever you prefer) game is tradition, and I have nothing against that in the slightest. But whoever decided that Ulster v Connacht and Munster v Leinster should be played within a couple of hours of each other on the same day is not someone I am too enamoured with. To miss out on one of the stand out fixtures of the Pro12 season is something I wasn't all too happy about, and to miss it to cover the snooze-fest that the Ulster match was made me even angrier.

If you read my match report you will see just how boring it was in that I had next to nothing to write about for the first 20 minutes of the second half. There was no action, no noteworthy events to acknowledge, not even anything from the crowd to write about – it was a boring game. Full credit to John Lacey who was very lenient with the whistle in an attempt to keep the game moving but even that couldn’t spark the two teams into life.

In saying all that it wasn’t a game for the backs, what with all the rain before kick-off and during the match, but even so it was a game that was so devoid of interesting and entertaining plays that had the entire stadium got up and left I’m not sure you could’ve blamed them. Craig Gilroy’s try aside (and some try at that), neither team’s backs did anything worthy of reporting on and probably could have taken the afternoon off.

For Connacht it was because they were starved of any meaningful possession. Pat Lam has engineered them into a formidable outfit this season and they will make a considerable effort to qualify for next season's Champions’ Cup in the latter stages of this season, but even the best sides can’t play rugby without a ball. In the end they did leave with a bonus point which they deserved for their defensive efforts, although Lam will be understandably annoyed that they didn’t make a better attempt at getting all four.

Meanwhile, it was another chapter in Ulster’s forgettable performances book. In a game where they had the majority of possession and territory as well as a scrum on the front foot, they could still only put 13 points on the board and eventually just hold on for the victory. This was seen as the game where Neil Doak’s men would get back on the winning trail and promote themselves once more as potential title candidates, however all they managed to do was further convince pundits and fans alike that this is a team in decline.

Maybe I am being unnecessarily harsh – after all, the conditions in Belfast were poor and certainly did not encourage running rugby, but it was very disheartening to see Ulster continue with their relentless tactic of ballooning the ball miles in the air at every available opportunity. With probably the best side of backs on the island of Ireland at our disposal, to see the ball never get any further than Paddy Jackson is getting increasingly frustrating for us as fans.

How many times did Peter Nelson actually touch the ball on Friday night? Or Michael Allen in Swansea?

I’m not saying kicking is necessarily the wrong tactic, because it wasn’t in Friday night’s conditions, however if we are going to deploy the up-and-under on a regular basis then our kickers need to be better and we need to have wingers who are willing to chase down the ball like their lives depend on it. That’s where we desperately miss Andrew Trimble as someone who will relentlessly sprint after the ball in the air and at least put pressure on the catcher. Neither Peter Nelson nor Craig Gilroy did that on Friday.

Still, you’d think we’d lost to Connacht the way I’m going on. The good news is that we finally got four points on the board in the Pro12 and we’re back into the play-off spots with a vital clash against Leinster to come on Saturday. Leinster, like us, aren’t in the greatest run of form and should we manage to escape the RDS with any kind of win then we will severely dent their top four aspirations as well as furthering our own. These are the games that will decide which of the big five will be on the outside looking in when it comes to May.

These are the games you have to win.

Tuesday 16 December 2014

BLESSING IN DISGUISE

The fun and games are over now.

Now that our beleaguered and rather lacklustre Champions’ Cup effort has died the terrible death it deserved with a pitiful 22-13 defeat to the Scarlets in Llanelli, it’s time to focus all of our efforts on the Pro12 – a competition we still have something of a fighting chance in. In hindsight, you maybe could look back to when the draw was made and say that that should have been our goal from the start, but then again, you never know what might happen in Europe.

In some ways that’s also what happened on Sunday. From looking like a side devoid of ideas in the Kingspan Stadium, the Scarlets burst into life and turned a 17-point deficit into a nine-point win this week in wet and windy Wales. Europe can bring out the best in sides and in the first half of Sunday’s game the home side showed the passion and desire that is required to make the knockout stages. We did not.

In actuality, our hosts didn’t even need to play that well – they simply preyed on our first half mistakes and capitalised through the boot of Rhys Priestland. In fact, had Priestland landed the two late penalties in the first half then arguably the game would have been over at the break, and there wouldn’t have been too many people arguing with that considering how we played in the first 40 minutes.

Horrendous probably describes the way we exited Europe’s premier competition, considering this double header was where we expected to pick up at least eight points, if not the full ten. Instead our awful discipline ended up presenting the Scarlets with a 12 point lead that we never managed to match. True it did look like JP Doyle was rather harsh on Declan Fitzpatrick considering Samson Lee was doing the exact same thing without punishment on the opposite side, but aside from that our indiscipline cost us dearly.

Even at that, it wasn’t as if we were constantly infringing at the breakdown either, rather we were giving away stupid, needless penalties. From Louis Ludik’s ridiculous flop onto Liam Williams when the full-back was still on the floor to Rory Best trying to wriggle a further ten metres down the field while on the ground to the multitudinous offsides we conceded in that first half, it made for frustrating viewing. Had I not been writing a match report of the game then I daresay I wouldn’t have tuned in for the second half.

And so, without any motivation left in Europe (regardless of what Neil Doak says), there is now prominence on making the top four in the Pro12. Arguably it is now a necessity without any knockout rugby to look forward to in April, and there can be no excuses for us missing out – we have the squad to do it whether people believe that or not, and we have the fixtures remaining to rack up a good points total. With both games against Treviso still to come plus visits to the Dragons and Edinburgh there are plenty of chances to pick up five points, while we still have to play host to Leinster and Munster – a chance to knock our play-off rivals back.

Because in reality, there was always an underlying belief that we were never going to win the Champions’ Cup. The French pairing of Toulon and Clermont collectively look far too strong for the rest of Europe and one of them should go all the way – more than likely the former with the vast number of international stars at Bernard Laporte’s disposal. I would confidently predict that you will see Toulon back at their sparkling best when we make the trip to the south of France next month.

So it’s time we forget about the train-wreck that has been the Champions Cup and ground our dreams once more. The next three weeks will be very important for our season – if we can win two of the next three then we will be in a very promising position heading into the Six Nations period, when everyone is decimated by call-ups, and we can really push on and maybe put a bit of distance between us and some of the other contenders. With no other distractions we really should be getting at least a home semi-final, if not top seeding.

That is where Neil Doak will be judged this season, not in the Champions’ Cup where we don’t have the resources to compete, but in the Pro12 where we have the squad to compete and the first team to rival any other in the league. If we can get some luck with our injuries (for the first time in several years) then there is no reason why there shouldn’t be a meaningful challenge for the Pro12 title this season.

If there isn’t, there will be a lot of questions asked.

Tuesday 9 December 2014

FALSE HOPE

It was exactly what Ulster needed, and yet exactly what they didn’t want.

As Ulster slowly began to ease away from the Scarlets and consolidate their bonus point win on Saturday night, the rugby gods had one cruel twist left to play and, after Stuart Olding departed late in the first half never to return, Neil Doak could only watch on in a mixture of shock and despair as Wiehahn Herbst, Franco van der Merwe, Stuart McCloskey and Nick Williams followed suit. Four injuries in about the space of ten minutes.

What will sicken Doak most is the fact that two of them were freak injuries. Firstly Franco felt the full force of Nick Williams’ head as the two forwards clashed into each other while making a joint tackle, and then, even more bizarrely, Stuart McCloskey had to be helped off with an elbow injury after he ran full pelt into the back of referee Luke Pearce.

Yes, the referee.

Of course it wasn’t McCloskey’s fault, he was only trying to catch a pass from Ruan Pienaar that happened to be slightly too far in front of him, but even so it’s another injury worry for the coaching staff to concern themselves with. Meanwhile Herbst and Williams don’t exactly look all too healthy either, and the loss of the South African tighthead would be a terrible blow as he and Callum Black were beginning to form a formidable prop partnership.

In many ways Ulster’s injury situation sums up their European charge – too much to handle.

Let’s face it, we knew that after we lost in Leicester and then at home to Toulon that the mountain we had to climb to qualify for the knockout stages was the equivalent of Mount Everest. True, with the five points gained on Saturday there is definitely still a chance for us to make it to the final eight, and with another win on Sunday that dream may still continue. But with an away trip to the Felix Mayol to take on the defending champions and the Tigers still to come to Belfast, things look bleak.

The return of Ruan Pienaar has galvanised us, but there’s only so much that one man can do. With the injuries that we have and the daunting prospect of taking points from the hostile Mayol crowd (something we couldn’t do at home) the odds are heavily against us. Anyone who can see us getting out of this pool now is very much an optimist rather than a realist.

This is why I have titled this week’s entry as “False Hope” – the win masked a still difficult problem in Europe. It’s perfectly good singing Ulster’s praises for a very good win, which it was, but the underlying issue is that realistically they still need at least 11 points from their last three games to even stand a chance of qualifying, and even then that may not be enough when you consider the competitive nature of the other four pools.

Where are those points coming from? A win over the Scarlets on Sunday would set the right tone, however with the injuries picked up on Saturday that’s not a given by any stretch of the imagination. The Scarlets are a much different prospect in the cold windy valleys of Llanelli than they are on the road, as Leicester found out in October. A home win over Leicester should be expected but away in Toulon expectations will be low.

Perhaps it is now time to focus our attentions elsewhere. We are already ravaged by injuries, and any more could be detrimental toward our Pro12 efforts, which right now look a lot more realistic than any further progression in the Champions’ Cup. Before now and the end of January we will travel to the Ospreys and Leinster and also play host to Connacht, three vital games that we can win and would put us in a very good position heading into the international period.

I’m not saying we should roll over in Europe, far from it – our pride in the white shirt should count for a lot more than that. However, should we not manage a win this Sunday then there is certainly a case for resting several key players for the Toulon and Leicester games and protecting our front line stars. Why focus all our efforts on Europe with no reward?

Then again, I’m just negative. An unlikely five points in Wales and this pool is wide open…