OUT, BUT NOT DOWN

And so, our European adventure has come to an end.

Despite turning on the style when it was needed to take apart a thoroughly disinterested Oyonnax side at the Kingspan Stadium, only Exeter and Bordeaux could do us a favour by overcoming the Ospreys and Clermont respectively – two results we needed but not enough by themselves. In fact we were out by the time those two games took place.

It was a disappointing end. Hopes were high after our demolition job on Saturday afternoon but we still needed other results go our way. One by one each team failed to succeed – Leinster and Bath fell by the wayside to Wasps and Toulon, the Scarlets were unable to prevent the Saints from picking up four tries, and then to top it all off Leicester were poor against Stade Francais. It was painful viewing as everything went against us.

And this all after we did our part by running in eight tries, which would have been enough to see us into the last eight had we picked up one more pool point elsewhere, be that picking up the extra try over in Oyonnax or a losing bonus point at home or away to Saracens. Ironically we can take a lot of positives from the weekend even if we are out.

Jared Payne once again was brilliant at full-back, a position he should definitely inherit for Ireland given the woeful performance of Rob Kearney against Wasps, while Nick Williams’ departure to Cardiff has done nothing to impact his performances since, with the powerful number eight having another man of the match outing. Rob Herring stepped into the hooker role and excelled too, enhancing his chances of taking the bench spot for Ireland behind new captain Rory Best (congrats Rory!).

But in the fallout of this weekend, you have to take a step back and ask yourself one question.

Is it such a bad thing Ulster are out?

Sure, it would have been really nice to be in the quarter-finals – to have knockout rugby is something to look forward too and it would also have been pretty good to be the only Irish side (and PRO12 side at that) to make the last eight too. But looking at the bigger picture it’s maybe better that we are now able to focus on domestic matters without a knockout game to worry about.

It’s more than likely we would have been back at Saracens in the quarter-finals anyway and they are in incredibly good form, so much so that they were able to rest a few players away to Toulouse and still win relatively handily. In a knockout game anything can happen, but it would have taken a monumental effort to win away in London, one I don’t think we’re quite ready to step up to.

Saracens are my pick to win the tournament outright.

I’m not saying Ulster are a poor team, I’m just saying that we are not at the level of Saracens and Toulon and Racing 92, and Les Kiss effectively admitted it too after our elimination was confirmed. They have top quality players sitting in reserve due to the amount of money they’re able to throw at them, while we have to develop from within – there’s only one winner there.

So in my humble opinion, it’s a good thing we only have the PRO12 to focus on – it’s a tournament we can definitely win and it’s a tournament where we can take a look at some young players and develop them into some handy squad players. We need that to compete with those big teams and to fill gaps too.

Looking ahead to the rest of the season actually holds some excitement.

Our minimum aim should be reaching the top two of the league and then making the final. With the standard of the PRO12 hanging around average, there is a real opportunity for us to use the Six Nations window to steal a march on our rivals and really push our way up the league, as well as introducing young players to the first team as well such as Lorcan Dow, David Shanahan and Robert Lyttle.

Would a season without a trophy be a disappointment for us? In my opinion, no. Our squad still lacks depth in some areas and they need filled, while the signings arriving next season will provide a lot of quality that will hopefully push us to a new level.

So I think if we can improve our depth by introducing some young players to the starting line-up and provide a platform from which we can push on next season then we can look forward to next season with even more enthusiasm than we do now.

And that would be a real success.

CENTRE STAGE

Alright class, calculators at the ready? Let’s start doing some permutations.

Actually, I’m not going to do that. Much has been made of what Ulster need going into this last weekend in Europe and, quite frankly, it’s going to take a lot for Les Kiss’ men to reach the last eight of the Champions’ Cup because, not only do Ulster need to take the maximum haul at home to Oyonnax on Saturday afternoon, but they’re also relying on two of about six results going their way and even within that there are permutations inside permutations.

Five points against Oyonnax should not be the problem, in fact should things do according to plan Ulster should rack up something resembling a cricket score against the Top14 strugglers at the Kingspan Stadium. How they played in the second half over in the Stade Charles Mathon is more of a representation of how Ulster can play and how they should tear apart their opponents this Saturday.

As for the other results, there are too many that need to fall in Ulster’s favour for them to progress. For example, can you really see Bordeaux-Begles taking four points from Clermont? Or Leinster’s cubs stealing a win from Wasps who were so cruelly denied a deserved win at the Stade Felix Mayol on Sunday afternoon?

Realistically all Ulster can do is set the benchmark and wait and see which teams meet it and which fall short.

What I’m more interested in is Ulster’s problems, and while I’m not referring to the defeat to Saracens, I am referring to their sudden strength in depth across the park following the return of one player and the signing of another.

We start in London where, although four tries were leaked and a bonus point was not acquired, I do not feel Ulster disgraced themselves. Saracens are simply streets ahead of the rest of the competition, us included, and are so well financed and drilled that it would have taken an unbelievable performance to even secure that losing bonus point. It is very likely we were just beaten by one of this season’s main contenders, if not the champions themselves.

Instead, there are a few things Ulster can take from the game, none more so than the return of Jared Payne at full-back, and within 15 minutes of coming back he proved exactly why he is a crucial member of Ulster’s squad.

Having seen Stuart McCloskey and Luke Marshall excel as a partnership in his absence, Payne was put into a vacant shirt at full-back and proceeded to remind all Ulster fans just what they have been missing since he was ruled out during the World Cup with a foot injury - his early stab kick through for Luke Marshall to score was nothing short of inch perfect, and it had to be, and was a perfect reflection on Payne’s class.

Where he fits in is another question entirely. With the aforementioned McCloskey and Marshall pushing to be Ireland’s centre partnership come the Six Nations next month, Payne may be better served at full back as opposed to trying to wrestle one of them out of their shirt, especially with Rob Kearney simply going through the status quo down in Dublin and not setting anything alight with his performances.

Being injured for so long won’t have helped Payne’s hopes of securing a starting place in a very competitive Ulster back line, but Saturday was an apt reminder of what he can do.

Meanwhile, the arrival of the most un-Irish sounding Irish international ever has increased our depth in a position where we needed it most. Rodney Ah You will join us next season and will compete with current tighthead duo Wiehahn Herbst and Ricky Lutton for a starting place in our front row, an area where we are getting stronger but could use as much depth as possible in case of injuries.

Despite falling down the Irish pecking order of late, Ah You is still an exciting acquisition for Ulster. He is a very dynamic ball carrier (something Ulster are in short supply of with the departure of Nick Williams) and if the Ulster coaching staff can sort out his scrummaging, which has been the subject of criticism, then he will be a very handy player to have in the squad, especially as someone to add impact off the bench.

Reasons to be cheerful this week, both in the short and long term. Payne’s return will be a catalyst that will hopefully see us ride a wave into the quarter-finals of the Champions’ Cup, while Ah You’s transfer north has filled a hole in our squad and has increased competition in a position where we need like-for-like replacements in a match.

For a week that started with a loss, not too bad I say.

A TALE OF TWO HALVES

Influential players are worth their weight in gold.

Take, for example, the influence that Paul O’Connell had on Munster – he was their go to man, their talisman that everyone rallied around when things weren’t going to plan. And look at their well-documented leadership struggles now he’s gone.

Jonny Wilkinson carried Toulon to their first Heineken Cup. Granted Toulon probably had the stars at their disposal to put most teams to the sword regardless, but the difference in how they played when Wilkinson was at the helm and when he wasn’t was obvious. He brought them to a new level that very few teams manage to keep up with let alone match.

So let’s apply the same logic to Ruan Pienaar and Paddy Jackson.

Oyonnax tore Ulster apart in that first half, their forwards were bloodthirsty, their backs were scintillating (particularly Uwa Tawalo on the wing) and their set piece was destructive. They looked like a team that disregarded their Top14 standing altogether and saw this as a blank slate from which they could work off.

It doesn’t excuse the fact that Ulster did make it easy for them at times with some slipped tackles leading to plenty of metres gained, turnovers in costly areas and errors when good hands were needed. Perhaps 23-0 was a little bit of a one-sided scoreline, especially when you consider one of the tries was an intercept, but it was one which Ulster would have to battle back from.

As was expected before the game began, if things weren’t going well then it would be Paul Marshall and Ian Humphreys who were scapegoated.

They were victims of a poor team performance, but a lack of attacking potency forced Les Kiss’ hand – one suspects his decision had already been made before Humphreys’ loose pass that resulted in Tawalo going the length of the pitch – and on came Pienaar and Jackson. And within two minutes of the restart you could see the difference.

Passes were zipped across the back line with pace, Jackson was switching play with ease and finding strike runners off his shoulders without difficulty: it was as if a great burden had been lifted and Ulster were granted the ability to play rugby once more. Scholes’ try was a mix of a brilliant move off the training paddock and individual ability while Gilroy’s score was a combination of the backs at their best.

Pienaar has always been a class act in a white shirt, but this season we are seeing Jackson mature into an equally talented individual outside him. Not only does he have the ability with the ball but he also has acquired a fantastic resolve that has served him well. How many other fly halves could brush off two missed kicks for the win a week before and send over a penalty from his own half to win the game a week later?

In the short-term, Les Kiss will be delighted that Pienaar and Jackson’s introductions swung the game for his team. In the long-term, there are questions.

There is suddenly a stark realisation that Ulster function at their best only when Pienaar and Jackson play together. Paul Marshall is an excellent option off the bench, but his and Humphreys’ lack of game time this season means they are not candidates to be starting a game together. Things looked forced and laboured in the first half and it wasn’t much of a surprise that Ulster went in at half time on a score of nil.

The problem is Ulster cannot afford to rest either Pienaar or Jackson as they are so vital to their success. Perhaps Sunday’s second half performance was down to Rory Best’s passionate half-time performance or perhaps Oyonnax tired in the second 40, but you cannot deny the change that Pienaar and Jackson made to the back line.

Marshall and Humphreys were given a raw deal no doubt, and you can’t help but sympathise with them. They have proven time and time again that they can be great footballers, but on Sunday with a pack going in reverse and no meaningful game time to work with coming into the match, what the coaching staff were expecting from them was a bit much.

Pienaar and Jackson will play the last two games against Saracens and Oyonnax before Jackson inevitably goes off to the Ireland camp for the Six Nations and only then will Humphreys get some prolonged game time at fly-half. Then we should see what Ian is capable of with a bit of front foot ball and a Springbok scrum-half on his inside.

But for now there is no denying who Ulster can do without at this level.

BOUNCING BACK

Stepping on Lego is painful. Especially in the dark it makes it even worse that you can’t see it coming.

Having stepped on the Lego you do not then keep your foot on the block and increase the pain. No, you remove your foot, take a step back and then take a very deliberate step over the Lego block and ensure you don’t make the same mistake again. It’s how we avoid pain – we learn from our errors and persist in rectifying them.

Ulster must avoid their Lego block again.

It’s too late, they’ve already stepped on their Munster shaped block once, now they have to ensure they don’t leave it stuck to their foot. Ulster have to make sure they shake off their defeat to Munster and get back in the right mindset for their trip to Oyonnax, because the French side, despite their failings in Europe thus far, will not be in any mood to surrender a fourth defeat on the spin in the Champions’ Cup and concede that they are the weakest side in Pool One.

Even though that tag may already be firmly planted on them, Oyonnax will not have any plans of rolling over in front of their home crowd. No doubt their interests will be firmly rooted in the Top14, but for their own sakes they need momentum and it would be wise for them to send out something resembling a full side for this game in order to gain a victory that would boost the morale of a battered squad.

So while the logic would be to stick your money on an Ulster five-pointer, there is a lot more to consider than just how the two sides have fared so far. On Saturday you would have put your money on a home win and look what happened there.

Is it cause for concern? Probably not.

Every team has a bad day at the office, and you’re inclined to believe that was Ulster’s. On another day perhaps a pass would have stuck and a try would have been scored, or perhaps Paddy Jackson would have found that extra couple of metres and put his kick over. But the ifs and the buts are simply wishful thinking – they did not happen, let us not consider them with more than a passing comment.

Instead let us remind ourselves that what took the field against Munster was more or less a similar side to that which started against, and annihilated, Toulouse only three weeks previous. Has that side suddenly become a terrible side in three weeks? Of course not.

It is simply the fact that against Toulouse everything clicked. Against Munster everything did not.

In some ways I think it’s a good thing that was the case. We’ve been served a rugby lesson in the harshest way possible – after the highs of the Toulouse wins we’ve been reminded that there will be games where we will not perform at our best and we need to find ways to grind out victories there too. We did in Galway, against Munster it proved that there is more to be done.

If, say, we were to go to Oyonnax this weekend and we performed like that again and were beaten then perhaps there is a case to be brought. But given the delightful rugby we were served against Toulouse and then the dogged win achieved in Galway I am more inclined to believe that that is the kind of rugby we can more look forward to from this Ulster side as the season goes on. It will not work week in week out, but when they do it will be poetry in motion.

So let’s drop the knee jerk reactions. No team wins every game all season (well, Saracens are giving it a good go), and it is how we bounce back from this defeat that will define the character of this squad. We will head to Oyonnax knowing that five points will put us right in the hunt for a Champions’ Cup quarter-final place, and it would be a remarkable achievement and a testament to our organisation at a whole that we shook off the Saracens result and battled back to qualify.

Expect the backlash.