Ulster 2013/2014

First topic message reminder :

Any reason why he didnt make an appearance for the Ravens?

clivemcl wrote:I've said it in the match thread, I just really wish games could be decided on skill and physicality, and not on dark arts or how much you can get away with.

Maybe its just my personality, and maybe i don't live in the real world, but even when Ulster players sneakily do things they shouldn't I find myself getting annoyed.

Some have said Ulster are too nice and need to learn the dark arts better. But this is the problem. Its a case of if you cant beat 'em, join 'em. And why? Because the masters of the dark arts get away with far far too much, and the punishments are too lenient.

All game long, leinster were competing at the break down whilst
a) not releasing after the tackle
b) not supporting their own weight
c) sometimes with knees on the ground!!!

It really is frustrating the hell out of me!!

Theres something to that because I think Muller and a number of Ulsters senior players are repectful to the referees whereas the likes of Leinster have their players chipping in all the time, with Hodges he's not someone to ignore it and tell them to shut up though Payne and Trimble asked him to look at 2 incidents with the TMO and he ignored them, both he got wrong.

clivemcl wrote:I've said it in the match thread, I just really wish games could be decided on skill and physicality, and not on dark arts or how much you can get away with.

Maybe its just my personality, and maybe i don't live in the real world, but even when Ulster players sneakily do things they shouldn't I find myself getting annoyed.

Yeah I don't know, I think Ulster get away with plenty at Ravenhill, especially Henry and Best. The problem is home advantage plays a huge part now on the referees.

For Ulster to win this competition we need to be getting these games at home and finishing in the top 2.

I still maintain it was the scrum that was the critical thing. Both backlines were fairly evenly matched - at least until Jackson went off - but those penalties and turnovers at the scrum were massive.

To only score 3 points when D'arcy was binned wasn't good enough too and we needed a bigger lead than 9-0 at half time with the bench Lsinster had versus ours.

I don't know, perhaps our pressure may have eventually paid of had we made touch twice when we didn't, or if we hadn't coughed up the ball at the breakdown, but the one thing that strikes me is that Leinster broke through and had us scrambling back on 4 or 5 occasions. Those are real momentum shifters. The best we did was make a few half breaks but getting hauled down by Leinsters defence before making any huge ground.

We simply didn't break them, not the forwards hammering away on their try line, nor the backs in open play.

We failed to make touch with two penalties, and we gave Leinster an easy mark from a kick, we gave three passes that didn't go to hand (or anywhere near a hand).

Scrum did seem bad, but we did manage to get a penalty in our favour at one scrum. It wasn't the major failing by a long way IMO.

"He also penalised Ulster for tackling beyond the ruck and stopping Leinster competing when they weren't committing anyone to the ruck then ignored a Leinster player doing it in the build up to the try, not that it made a difference but some bloody consistency would be nice"

I was screaming at that one immediately, it was utterly blatant, in front of the ref and went unpenalised. Really frustrating indeed but when it goes the other way we're happy enough to take that wee bit of luck. These little inconsistencies really bug me not with the little things that can easily be missed but examples like this when the ref is being so firm about it against us and seemingly ignores it when it should have went for us.

When you struggle to win your own ball then its bad. Only time it was solid was on Leinsters feed.

It disintegrated badly in the second half to the point where we could barely win our own ball.

Leinster made the better clean breaks but we had them camped in their 22 on several occasions and didn't take advantage. Pienaar was a major culprit imo.

Cant agree about our backline being good. It was passable to a point but when you don't have the Williams and Ferrises of the world available you need something. Our packgot us into position on numerous occasions but we couldn't finish.

Gilroy was decent for me but no more than that (that's a herculean improvement on his other performances). He is still too soft in the tackle for me as was evidenced on a number of occasions. Pienaar can play the way we want and fast paced but he clearly wasn't fit.

Pienaar obviously wasn't fit. The absence of his normal spin pass showed his shoulder is still crocked.

The backs did well enough off poor ball, but games are still won up front and Ulster only had Henderson as a power runner. Henry, Wilson, Diack, Black, Best, Lutton and Muller all have their plus points but carrying isn't really in any of their armouries. Potentially they can suck in defenders but close to the line it takes a fast service to release the wide backs where the defence is stretched, and Ruan just didn't have that on the day.

Paul Marshall would have been ideal to bring on if Jackson hadn't been injured, but Anscombe probably felt a Marshall/McKinney combo was too big a drop in quality.

Well, the seasons over so I don't see the point.

I'll start Ulster 2014/2015