THE GREAT ESCAPE

If you’ve ever watched The Shawshank Redemption then you’ll know how a great escape needs careful planning.

In the classic movie, Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) plans for months how to escape from Shawshank and, through perfect execution, manages to work his way out of the prison and to freedom, even though all the odds are against him managing to find a way past all the guards blocking his path. His plan succeeded, as did Ulster’s.

The final line-out that Edinburgh had on the Ulster 5m line could have been catastrophic. So many things could have gone wrong: one person could have engaged by accident and the maul would walk over; or even a combined charge from three Edinburgh forwards might have been enough to drive over the line. The choice to stand back and not take on the Edinburgh pack was a risk-and-reward of the highest degree – had it not paid off then the victory would have evaporated, but if it did work (which it did) then it provided another valuable chance to hold out the hosts.

Which the Ulstermen did.

That’s not what I want to focus on though. Yes, that was probably the pivotal moment of the match and is a stroke of tactical genius from whoever ordered it (presumably Neil Doak), but it is well worth remembering that Ulster were nothing short of abysmal before that, only saved by the fact that Edinburgh were equally as bad with ball in hand. It was one of those games you couldn’t take your eyes off for the wrong reasons.

For example, Edinburgh were so poor that they couldn’t score a try against thirteen men. When camped on the Ulster line, they kept battering away with the forwards to no avail, and made no attempt to get it beyond fly-half Tom Heathcote, despite having one of the world’s best natural finishers in Tim Visser on the wing. Where Ulster got it tactically correct, Alan Solomons and Edinburgh got it wrong.

And you also have to remember that had Heathcote landed just two of the kicks he managed to miss, then we would have lost. In fact, if he’d got all six (yes, six) that he missed then we wouldn’t even have a losing bonus point to celebrate, such was the amount of points that the Scottish fly-half squandered. It just proves that sometimes there is a very fine line between winning and losing, and more often than not a good place kicker can be that difference.

It also proves just how poor Ulster were, that they relied on the wayward kicking of Heathcote to see them to victory. Having one less player didn’t help, but by then Ulster should have had the ability to be out of sight – that they were only six points to the good with three-quarters of the game played proves how wasteful Doak’s men were.

Not that Ulster’s penalty count aided them. McCloskey aside as an isolated incident, Ulster still conceded nearly three times as many penalties as their opponents, and any side conceding that many penalties will struggle to win. Leighton Hodges has come under a lot of scrutiny for his officiating and, while he did favour the home side slightly, the majority of his calls were fair. Ulster simply were not smart at the breakdown and suffered accordingly.

It doesn’t help not having a recognised openside. Willie Faloon’s arrival next season will shore up a considerable hole behind Chris Henry in the Ulster squad, but right now Ulster are crying out for a specialist openside who knows his way around the breakdown. Tim Boys has been brought in for that exact reason, yet so far hasn’t even been included in a senior matchday squad – it begs the question as to what he’s been doing in training for a 64-time Super Rugby capped flanker not to be drafted into the team.

Still, another win recorded, another four points, and two places further up the table we rise. As I said following our victory over Treviso, it’s better being on the inside looking out than on the outside looking in, and even though the performances are still maybe not up to standard there are plenty of games to get ourselves play-off ready, and with probably the easiest run-in of the five teams chasing those four play-off places, the impetus really is on us to seize the momentum and challenge for one of the top two spots and bring a semi-final back to the Kingspan Stadium.

Still, we could do with less performances like Friday night’s.

BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL

Don’t we all wish sometimes sports players could explain their actions during a game?

Take Saturday for instance. I think what most fans wanted to know was just what Pascal Papé was thinking when he ran full pelt into Jamie Heaslip’s back with his knee raised – his argument that he was simply entering the maul at a height didn’t fool Wayne Barnes and didn’t fool anybody watching either. A yellow card for the Frenchman and a citing has followed – it is likely Papé won’t play any more part in France’s Six Nations campaign this year.

You’d quite like to ask Rory Best why he stuck out his leg to trip up Morgan Parra as well. A man to the good and with nothing significant on towards the right, Best’s decision to hinder the Clermont scrum-half could easily have cost Ireland more than it did, and instead of a comfortable lead to close out in the final few minutes, Ireland saw themselves desperately clinging onto a 7-point advantage, with the Grand Slam possibly slipping through their fingers.

In the end, it wasn’t a great performance again. Not helped by Barnes’ ineptitude at officiating the set-piece, Ireland set about their business with an efficiency they were missing last week in Rome, but without the cutting edge that saw them put away the Italians last week, and it nearly cost them. That Joe Schmidt’s side didn’t cross the whitewash against a side that conceded twice against Scotland isn’t something to be proud of, and although the win keeps us top of the Championship, I genuinely fear that the England game will be the one where Ireland’s luck may run out.

It also painfully highlights how dependent Ireland are upon Jonny Sexton.

Yes, any side with a fly-half as good as Sexton is would struggle to replace him, but the gulf in class between Sexton and his understudies Madigan and Keatley is about as wide as the Pacific Ocean. Madigan’s problems at 10 stem back to the fact that Matt O’Connor utilises him mainly as an inside centre at Leinster – how is a player expected to control an international Test when he isn’t being given a chance at provincial level? Meanwhile, Keatley is an honest grafter I’ll give him that, but there is such a thing as being good for your province and not performing in the green jersey.

Harsh? No. This is international rugby, the standards go up and so must the performances. Players like Sean O’Brien, Cian Healy and Tommy Bowe aren’t known as the world’s best simply because they perform week in week out for their clubs – it’s because they’re able to raise their game for the big stage as well. If a player isn’t up to it, then they shouldn’t be on the field.

Schmidt has questions to answer, I called him out on some of the tactics last week and while it’s another win chalked up, the performance of the Irish doesn’t seem to have improved any. Credit to France for putting up something of a fight in the final few minutes, but by no means should Ireland have even let them get close to where they did. The French are well renowned for throwing in the towel away from home should they be performing poorly, and the fact that they didn’t on Saturday proves how poorly Ireland succeeded in putting them away.

Again, credit where credit is due, France did indeed battle away for the full 80 and they will win away from home against other teams, but with the clueless Philippe Saint-André at the helm and their inability to travel well they are not a team to be feared and should have simply been a speedbump on the road to a Grand Slam. Wales away should have been the trickiest game for Ireland, but so far they’re making all of them look like potential banana skins.

Quite possibly I’m just a perfectionist. I’m not saying Ireland should run 60 points past every team, but certainly at home I’m expecting comfortable victories, especially against teams like France. In a World Cup year, if things aren’t gelling and mistakes are still being made then you have to become concerned. Sides like the All Blacks and Springboks will provide much sterner tests than France and Italy will, and if we have true aspirations to actually put forward a legitimate challenge to be the World Champions then things have to start going well right now, otherwise there is a real possibility that we will be undercooked heading over to England in September.

And that is not a nice thought.

OPENING REMARKS

For Christmas this year, one of my family members received a Countdown calendar which features a daily conundrum for the person to solve.

Sunday’s word happened to be “stagnancy”.

It is rather apt that on the day I sat down to pen this week’s musings the exact word to sum up Ireland’s lethargic performance against Italy was sitting right in front of me, albeit deliberately hidden as an anagram. Stagnancy, for those that do not recognise the word, is the product of being stagnant i.e. having a lack of movement or motion or flow. And if someone presented that word to Joe Schmidt right now he would also probably use it to sum up Ireland’s laboured victory in Rome.

A first win in the Italian capital, yes, but one that will do nothing to improve Ireland’s confidence that they can retain their Six Nations crown. Italy for all their improvements are still the weakest side of the six and should always be targeted as a win, and also as a confidence booster if you are lucky enough to be drawn against them early in the campaign.

And so Ireland should have seen this game as exactly that – a glorious opportunity to put something resembling a cricket score past the hapless Italians and return back to the Aviva this Saturday with a healthy points difference and plenty of confidence that they could see off a misfiring and inconsistent French outfit. Indeed the only thing that would have made Saturday’s game easier is if it was in Dublin and not Rome.

Maybe it was the fact that we were missing Jonathan Sexton as a playmaker at fly-half, or maybe it was that our hosts put up more of a fight than we thought they did, but Ireland certainly did make life difficult for themselves as much as possible. A stuttering second half, a mirror of the first, was broken by a yellow card to Leonardo Ghiraldini which swung the momentum firmly in the visitors’ favour and eventually saw their slight dominance turned into two tries from Conor Murray and Tommy O’Donnell.

Instead of being a jubilant victory, you could sense some relief from Irish men and women the world over, none more so than RTE’s pundits who had stated at half-time the next score would determine which way the game would go. Ronan O’Gara, who provided some good insight into the game, accurately predicted that should Ireland get the next points then they would avoid being sucked into an arm wrestle – a statement that rang true.

Surprisingly was the fact that Ireland failed to utilise their main weapon, the driving maul, until well into the second half. Early into the game it was already blindingly obvious that the Italians were struggling to match the well set power of the Irish pack in the loose, and had Ireland stuck with simply trucking it up the pitch from the line-out, then one suspects Pascal Gauzere would have reached for the pocket sooner. Ghiraldini was given his marching orders from a driving maul hauled down short of the line, surprisingly the only Italian player to be sin binned for that offence.

While the forwards struggled to come to the collective decision to stick it up the jumper and drive as one, the backs were also struggling to get it beyond the two centres. Robbie Henshaw, your typical run-of-the-mill bash it up the middle centre was being deployed at inside centre, while Ireland’s greatest full-back Jared Payne was once again shoved into the outside centre jersey and told to make a go of it.

I’m not saying that either are bad centres, because they are not, but I am saying they were played out of position.

Henshaw could make a very good go at playing inside centre, and did so in Rome where he was prevalent but rather ineffective, however he is much better utilised at outside centre where his pace and physicality is at the fore. Meanwhile Payne is a much more dangerous runner when he has the space to do so from full-back – his ability to spot a gap in the defensive line is one of the best in the northern hemisphere and, to be quite frank, he is wasted in the 13 shirt. A very gifted footballer Payne is, but only when played correctly.

What Joe Schmidt has achieved in his time with Leinster and in his first season with Ireland is possibly unrivalled by any other coach today, and as such there has become something of a “what he says is truth” following behind him now. Saturday highlighted that even the best get things wrong, and while Ireland did win, it was far from convincing. With a pair of centres who will not play the Schmidt brand of rugby and a pack who seem oblivious to the fact that they can, and will, steamroll over many other packs in Europe, things are maybe a little less rosy than they seem on the surface.

France await, with England following soon after. Things only get tougher.

NEW BOYS IN TOWN

A huge welcome to Belfast to Mr. Tim Boys!

The New Zealander’s surname may spark the usual puns of “Jobs for the Boys” or my lame attempt at a title, but by all accounts we’re getting a tough grafter in Boys – an out-and-out openside flanker who does the dirty work when the ball is on the floor, something similar to what Chris Henry does for us when he’s available.

In other words, something that we’ve been desperately missing for the past few months.

Since Chris became ill – and we still wish him all the very best in his recovery – it’s been a bit of a chop and change act at 7 for Ulster, with four potential suitors all being given a crack at the shirt since October. But it’s at this point that you suddenly realise how crucial an openside flanker can be in the big games. Had Chris Henry started against Toulon then you could make an argument that the French side would not have received such quick service, and therefore not put 60 past us.

The role of the openside flanker is to get himself nearly everywhere on the pitch, make his tackles and to hit as many rucks as possible trying to slow the ball down or effect a turnover. Ulster can, to a certain extent, get away without an openside flanker with the outstanding work rate of Rory Best and the strength of Iain Henderson managing to operate as two more breakdown specialists, however there’s absolutely no harm in having one more.

The problem is that Ulster do not have one. I mentioned that four potential suitors had been given a chance at playing 7, which is fine out of context, but whenever you realise that all four are blindside flankers or number eights then you suddenly see the problem – Ulster are playing without a breakdown specialist at 7. In the big games it’s a problem that can be swept under the carpet because of Best and Henderson, but whenever those two are missing then there is a big void in the Ulster squad.

Which is why the arrival of Boys was essential. With no more European games to concern us, the Pro12 is now priority number one, and we are not winning that without a recognised openside flanker in our squad. Big teams will simply blow us away on the floor, much like Toulon did, and without the ball you don’t stand a chance at winning games. The best sides all have those breakdown specialists working away for them, managing to evade the referee’s glances in their direction and doing the dirty work for their side. We faced two of the best opensides in world rugby in Julian Salvi and Steffon Armitage when we came up against Leicester and Toulon and it showed, particularly on the road.

So it’s a great relief Boys is here, mullet and all.

However his arrival does throw up a few questions about the Academy and their productiveness. While Leinster are churning out flankers of all shapes and sizes like their lives depend on it, we haven’t seen a homegrown back rower come through our system for years and now it’s beginning to catch up on us with Boys required to come in and fill the gaping hole in our stretched squad. Meanwhile down in Dublin, Matt O’Connor can afford to lose three or four flankers and he’d still be able to fill his back row with players he trusted to get the job done. That is what we aspire to.

Boys will be a stop gap while Henry is recovering, he will not stay beyond the end of the season, instead returning to the sunnier climate of New Zealand for the ITM Cup (which is an enthralling watch while Ulster aren’t in action by the way). While he is here though he will provide plenty of good pointers for younger players and I can see him being a key member of our team for the remainder of this season – he may not be Richie McCaw or Chris Robshaw, but a man with 46 Super Rugby caps to his name is someone that has some talent to his name.

An appearance for the Ulster Ravens today will herald the start of Boys’ career in Northern Ireland and it will be intriguing to see how he gets on after only being here a week. I don’t think I can stress enough how essential it is that we get him up to speed as soon as possible and then get him on the pitch against Treviso next Friday. His presence will balance out the back row perfectly, assuming we also have Robbie Diack to do the lion’s share of tackling and Nick Williams to provide some ball carrying potential, and should set us up nicely heading into the Six Nations period – a crucial time in the Pro12 season.

Whether Boys should have been signed instead of giving some younger players a chance is up to each individual to discern to their own satisfactory conclusion, but the crux of the matter is that without Chris Henry, Ulster are in serious difficulties, and Boys slots perfectly into the gap left behind. Younger players will get their chance eventually, but we were desperately crying out for a groundhog openside flanker to join us and we got one.

Not a bad bit of business in my eyes.