Ospreys vs Ulster- Teams Announced

First topic message reminder :

Scott Johnson has named his Ospreys side to face Ulster and it's a landmark for Ospreys utility forward Jonathon Thomas; he's winning his 150th cap

Ospreys

15 Barry Davies
14 Richard Fussell
13 Tom Isaacs
12 Andrew Bishop
11 Hanno Dirksen
10 Dan Biggar
9 Rhys Webb
1 Duncan Jones
2 Scott Baldwin
3 Aaron Jarvis
4 Ian Gough
5 James Goode
6 Tom Smith
7 Justin Tipuric (Capt)
8 Jonathan Thomas

Replacements:

16 Richard Hibbard
17 Cai Griffiths
18 Joe Rees
19 James King
20 Joe Bearman
21 Matthew Morgan
22 Sonny Parker
23 Kristian Phillips

One change in the Ulster team- Luke Marshall comes in for the injured Darren Cave in the centre and Nevin Spence switches from 12 to 13. Willie Faloon replaces McComish on the bench and Academy scrumhalf Blane McIlroy comes in for Ian Porter who has a rib injury.

Ulster

15 Jared Payne
14 Craig Gilroy
13 Nevin Spence
12 Luke Marshall
11 Ian Whitten
10 Ian Humphreys
9 Paul Marshall
1 Declan Fitzpatrick
2 Andi Kyriacou
3 Jerry Cronin
4 Lewis Stevenson
5 Dan Tuohy
6 Pedrie Wannenburg
7 Chris Henry (Capt)
8 Robbie Diack

Replacements

16 Nigel Brady
17 Paddy McAllister
18 Adam Macklin
19 Tim Barker
20 Willie Faloon
21 Blane McIlroy
22 Paddy Jackson
23 Adam D'Arcy

Unavailable due to injury:Callum Black (neck), Darren Cave (hamstring), Ian Porter (ribs)

The game will take place at the Liberty Stadium at 4.30pm on Sunday; the game will be televised on S4C and will be available to stream live on the BBC Sport website for fans located in the UK.

Missed the match shame about the result, but we did play a very young side. From what it seems though our pack was the weakness.

How did Marshall and Spence do?

Draigoch, that was Jim Neilly a legend in these parts. Don't worry about the mistakes, he gets the Ulster players all mixed up as well. And yes he is very unbiased.

Missed the game, but was wondering whether Matthew Morgan got any game time? And if so, how did he do? Very talented prospect in attack, but a risk in defence!

He had about 10 min on the field but I don't see the point of having him on the field as a 10 if he is not allowed to receive the ball in that position.

Rory_Gallagher wrote:Missed the match shame about the result, but we did play a very young side. From what it seems though our pack was the weakness.

How did Marshall and Spence do?

Quiet games. Never really had the ball in good attacking positions and slipped off a few tackles.

Not all that great then..

Positives from the match for Ulster? Did Faloon add anything when he came on?

Apparently I was on tv a few times tonight so I am being told by my partner, people went sending my brother in law pictures through the game of us.

I'm delighted with the Ospreys tonight they really gave us their best and tried hard. Seeing as were not arguing about the referee I will not comment until I have watched the match again tomorrow when it is uploaded to the S4C website.

However....
Can someone explain to me how come Ulster were given so many warnings before our penalty try was given, yet as soon as the Ospreys do anything on their own line he went straight under the posts?
Not trying to start an argument (yet), I am simply wondering in case we missed something in the stands.

Also lovely to see so many Ulster supporters there tonight, they were very loud and seemed to be enjoying themselves, at least in the first half.

Joke of the night from the boys behind us:
Q) What type of referee will we have on Friday for the Connaght game?
A) An Irish one....

You didn't miss anything really, a penalty try is awarded when the referee is pretty sure a try would be scored if not for the infringement. For instance, if you slap down a ball that would otherwise be a certain try-scoring pass or bring down a maul that has pretty much unstoppable momentum.

Both the penalty tries were very similar actually, just one was a maul and the other was a scrum.

Notch wrote:You didn't miss anything really, a penalty try is awarded when the referee is pretty sure a try would be scored if not for the infringement. For instance, if you slap down a ball that would otherwise be a certain try-scoring pass or bring down a maul that has pretty much unstoppable momentum.

Both the penalty tries were very similar actually, just one was a maul and the other was a scrum.

Ok thanks Notch

Alyn given the penalty count I don't think the Ospreys have any right to complain about the ref! If I remember right it was something along the lines of 17-2 in favour of the Ospreys between the 20 and 60 minute marks (when I lost my signal).

JmD wrote:Alyn given the penalty count I don't think the Ospreys have any right to complain about the ref! If I remember right it was something along the lines of 17-2 in favour of the Ospreys between the 20 and 60 minute marks (when I lost my signal).

I haven't complained... yet. Also on the Ospreys forum most people are being fairly complimentry about him, which is unusual to say the least.
The consensus seems to be that both Biggar and Hibbard should probably of been yellowed for abusing the ref, though only Hibbard was, while Gough was lucky not to get carded for throwing a punch in an off the ball incident.
Like I said I will watch it tomorrow when S4C put them game up, either way I'm in a good mood because we have beaten a quality team tonight with a bit to spare.

Fair to say Ulster went in with little or no expectations, given the team? Young Paddy's start might have disturbed that a bit.

We'll get them on the return leg don't worry.

Bit of a stop start game tbh. Far to many pens and errors which ruined what could've been a good match. Thought the ref was poor, some bizzare decisions, but I was up in stand and haven't seen any replays yet. Ulsters backs looked more dangerous than ours. Baz Davies at FB had a mare imo. Like I mentioned, to many errors and the way the 3 tries came about it more or less summed the game up. Cannot complain though, 4/4 wins at the start of the season.

Alyn

You can have no complaints about the ref. He was poor yes but poor for both. Its just that the O's were much more savvy and Ulster seemed brainless at times. No complaints from me about that defeat. Didnt deserve anything from the game and we really seem to be missing Muller away from Ravenhill.

Our backrow had zero physicality but they are also very very lumbering without ferris and Faloon. no real pace in there at all. The young backs showed glimpses of what they can do but really we could have had 6 Jonah lomus in the backline and they wouldnt have been able to do anything such was the performance of the forwards.

Congrats Ospreys. See you at Ravenhill

Missed this one. Were there any positives from an Ulster perspective?

How did young Jackson and Luke Marshall go?

Jackson scored a good try but missed a couple of kicks. Marshall had one good break but was peripheral thereafter, dropping a simple pass and putting in a poor grubber come to mind.

Hard to criticise them but to be honest you couldnt play that backline again without Pienaar or IHumph in it. Muller also given his leadership. If Humph is out of the next game (Cave too) then moving Payne up to 13 and D'arcy to 15 becomes plausible with spence at 12.

Given the start Ulster made would have expected them to kick on but think the ref ruined the game gave warnings then never folowed through and a lot of the penalties he gave think he tossed a coin on who infringed as it seemed one was as bad as the other

Thanks stand. Yeah I have to say I was a bit concerned about that backline when IHumph was withdrawn. Very talented but too young and inexperienced.

I agree that moving Payne to 13 and D'arcy to 15 is the logical move with IHumph and Cave out. I'm surprised we didn't go for that anyway when there were question marks around Humphreys.

I see McLaughlin has hinted he was unhappy with the ref. He should be more concerned with his players. That said Phillips is a nightmare. I recall he penalised Willie Faloon at Thomond last year for falling on the ball in open playing and passing it back. Even Eddie O'Sullivan in commentary was completely baffled by it.

Breadvan wrote:Bit of a stop start game tbh. Far to many pens and errors which ruined what could've been a good match. Thought the ref was poor, some bizzare decisions, but I was up in stand and haven't seen any replays yet. Ulsters backs looked more dangerous than ours. Baz Davies at FB had a mare imo. Like I mentioned, to many errors and the way the 3 tries came about it more or less summed the game up. Cannot complain though, 4/4 wins at the start of the season.

Good summary.

A lot of the Ulster players will have learnt something from that game, which is a positive. Ulster were totally out-manoeuvred in the scrums. Generally on their own put-in they were solid, but in defensive scrums they were totally out-smarted by the wily MOTM Jones, who managed to delay his bind long enough to get under Cronin. Not sure how a TH gains advantage by being driven up (?), but Phillips regularly penalised him.

Interestingly Ulster's scrum got better when Macklin came on although by that time Jones was probably waning.

The breakdown was also a mess with no consistency leaving both sides unsure of how to play it. Thomas managed it better than most giving the O's the edge.

Paddy Jackson would have been a losing contender for MOTM and scored the try of the game, but he'll look back and wonder if Ulster would have been better to play without the ball given the number of penalties conceded by the team in possession. Still he showed plenty of ability and commitment in defence and is bound to develop through exposure.

Payne limped off which was a worry, as Ulster have practically no experience left in the backline unless Cave or Humph get back soon.

The scrums were driving me nuts to be honest, 75% of the time the Ospreys got the shove on and the Irish went backwards then their front row stood up, yet time and time again it went unpunished.

That's no being disrespectful to Ulster either... ok so the Ospreys lost Loose head props Paul James, Ryan Bevington, Hooker Huw Bennett, and tight head to Adam Jones, for World Cup duty.

However we can still call on 57 cap, Duncan Jones at loose head, Mefin Davies a 39 times capped hooker, if he gets tired we still have 15 times capped international hooker Richard hibbard, as well man monster Cai Griffiths a 19 stone tight head.

The Ospreys also had Wales reserve tight head Craig Mitchell on the books but he left for Exeter after the world Cup.

Having watched the game again, and seen the game live it is clear they got let off a lot in the scrum area.

There were a lot of penalties at the scrum Alyn, against us. It feels like you're always looking for things to complain about. Certainly we were penalised and rightly so.

Notch wrote:There were a lot of penalties at the scrum Alyn, against us. It feels like you're always looking for things to complain about. Certainly we were penalised and rightly so.

In my defence I did say I wanted to see the game from the Tv perspective before I posted more on this topic.

Though I did have a wander over the Ulster fan forums and many of their fans seem to think they were screwed over by the ref, so delusion is not always confined to Wales and Welsh fans

Yeah, you always get a few moaners everywhere. We give him a LOT of reasons to penalise us.