Ulster 2013/2014

First topic message reminder :

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

one of many reason I just don't see it happening

I have to be honest here - I've often felt that the national side would be better if the three best players in any given position were each starters at the top three provinces rather than piled up at one club fighting for gametime.

But it shouldn’t be the number ones that move, it should be the surplus. And a two-way street!

If Ulster feel Cave is a better outside centre then he is surplus for us.

From September he is an IRFU contracted player which means he isn't ours anyway.

rodders wrote:If Ulster feel Cave is a better outside centre then he is surplus for us.

From September he is an IRFU contracted player which means he isn't ours anyway.  

Who Payne? Nonsense rodders

What's nonsense?

The fact that just because we have two guys on the Ireland radar that can play 13 one is surplus. Or did I misunderstand you?

Both stand - I clearly don't think Payne is surplus but if he's not deemed the best 13 in Ulster by the Ulster management then by definition he could be deemed surplus in his new chosen position if he can't get a starting spot. This is on the assumption that both he and the IRFU want him in the centre and Ulster don't.

A bit like when Fitzgerald apparently wanted to move to Munster to play 13 before he got injured and thought better of it.

Problem is Jared Payne is both our best 15 and our best 13. It just so happens that the next best 13 is better than the next best 15.

Maybe next season we'll see a back line like this;
9. Pienaar
10. Jackson
11. Bowe
12. Marshall
13. Payne
14. Trimble
15. Olding

21. Marshall 22. Cave 23. Gilroy

By that logic we will take Marty Moore and Jack McGrath off Leinster. Cronin or Strauss can head to Connacht or Munster as can one of Ryan or Kilcoyne.

I think one thing being missed here is the assumption Payne will only be a contender for the 13 shirt for Ireland, he could end up as the 15 or alternative only make the bench.

With BOD's retirement Cave is the best 13 in Ireland.
He has not been given a decent run - Fitzgerald an Earls have been tried there and come up short.
As Schmidt has indicated both Henshaw and Payne will be tried there as well as Cave.
At this moment in time both Payne and Henshaw are both better 15's than 13's.

If it was clear Payne was Ireland's next 13 it would make some sense but if, and it is perfectly possible, Henshaw and/or Cave proved to be better bets then we would have the absolutely absurd situation of moving Payne to Leinster and then having Ireland's best 2 15 at the same Province.
Infact if Henshaw goes there we could have Irelands best 3 15's at the same Province - 'Alice in Wonderland' territory.

Bottom line it is far too early to make the call - until we know where Payne is going to best suited to Ireland it is stupid to move him.

Standulstermen wrote:By that logic we will take Marty Moore and Jack McGrath off Leinster. Cronin or Strauss can head to Connacht or Munster as can one of Ryan or Kilcoyne.

You'd have to give up Olding or Marshall also a winger as Gilroy,Bowe and Trimble is too crowded.This could turn into a merry go round   

asoreleftshoulder wrote:

Standulstermen wrote:By that logic we will take Marty Moore and Jack McGrath off Leinster. Cronin or Strauss can head to Connacht or Munster as can one of Ryan or Kilcoyne.

You'd have to give up Olding or Marshall also a winger as Gilroy,Bowe and Trimble is too crowded.This could turn into a merry go round   

Not necessarily. If we lost Payne, Olding or Gilroy would be our 15 but I agree with your general point. It would be a circus

asoreleftshoulder wrote:

Standulstermen wrote:By that logic we will take Marty Moore and Jack McGrath off Leinster. Cronin or Strauss can head to Connacht or Munster as can one of Ryan or Kilcoyne.

You'd have to give up Olding or Marshall also a winger as Gilroy,Bowe and Trimble is too crowded.This could turn into a merry go round   

Exactly. A merry go round where everybody loses. Nucifora and Schmidt will have to understand this isn't like Australia and New Zealand. The provinces have equal status to the national team in the eyes of the fans even if the balance sheet doesn't bear that out, and we are much more tribal... the backlash towards this kind of meddling will be more than it's worth.

Standulstermen wrote:By that logic we will take Marty Moore and Jack McGrath off Leinster. Cronin or Strauss can head to Connacht or Munster as can one of Ryan or Kilcoyne.

Yes I suppose by that logic you could say that. What the key point is if Martin Moore is happy on the bench or not, if he is then the situation would be different.

geoff998rugby wrote:I think one thing being missed here is the assumption Payne will only be a contender for the 13 shirt for Ireland, he could end up as the 15 or alternative only make the bench.

Well it is and it isn't Geoff - its already public knowledge that Schmidt and the IRFU asked him about whether he wanted to play 13 for Ireland and he said he did - and that he met with BOD and Schmidt last year to discuss the role.

There has been no mention of him playing fullback, where Kearney is pretty nailed on.

Schmidt has also said he will take a look at Henshaw and Cave at 13.

The only reason 13 is being mentioned at all is because some bod is retiring and left a bit of a whole.
Not unreasonably Schmidt is looking around at all the options and has specifically mentioned 3 people.

Cave and Henshaw have had discussions with BOD on the 13 roll as well
If Payne loses out 15 not 13 might be his best chance of playing for Ireland .
If so it make more sense being at Ulster rather than Leinster.

I do not accept Kearney is nailed on - Ireland need a decent alternative, Jones isn't good enough, Payne would provide that and it would be a really good contest.

I repeat it is too early to make the call where Payne will be playing his rugby for Ireland and such should not move this summer.

if I'm not mistaken as well Payne said he'd like to play 13 when he's older, I took that to mean in his 30's and as he loses some of the attributes that make him a good 15

Has anyone else heard rumours of Sean Doyle leaving?

He has yet to sign a contract for next year and was under a small cloud around November but since then performances have been such that I would be amazed if he is not offered a new contract

Apparently the rumour is that he is off to the Brumbies, hopefully there isn't any truth in it

Sean Doyle is allegedly out the door, signed for the Brumbies. If thats true we need to sign another open side and they have to be Irish  

Something must be rotten in the Ulster camp when we can't hold onto squad players. We suffer a big exodus each season. We can't build any depth if we can't retain these guys and if our representation in the international set-up grows we will be in trouble.

Notch wrote:Sean Doyle is allegedly out the door, signed for the Brumbies. If thats true we need to sign another open side and they have to be Irish  

Something must be rotten in the Ulster camp when we can't hold onto squad players. We suffer a big exodus each season.

To be fair in recent times the AUS franchises really have been keeing an eye on the AUS qualified players here. They have signed Tom Sexton and Murphy from Leinster in recent times and now Doyle. The Reds also signed Ed O'Donaghue who is playing well over there.

A recall for falloon perhaps? Hasn't exactly been on fire for Connacht though. Or maybe Dougal in Munster? He's an ulsterman and Munster are gonna have some depth there next year.

You just missed out on Gilsenan, who signed for London irish. He's unproven but could have done a decent job for you.

Faloon has two years left to run on his Connacht contract. Sean Dougall might be an option. Signed a two year contract with Munster in January 2013. Does that mean he has six months left on it after this season is over?

With Doyle it might just be a good old fashion case of home sickness.
I just get a feeling he would jump at the chance to go back to Aus

Faloon and Dougall has contracts running into next year.

Really don't see how something must be rotten in the Ulster camp. Doyle is an Aussie and has an offer from a Super Rugby franchise. Makes sense for him to go home. He wouldn't be on massive money over here anyway and is, at best, a squad filler for us.

Notch wrote:Sean Doyle is allegedly out the door, signed for the Brumbies. If thats true we need to sign another open side and they have to be Irish  

Something must be rotten in the Ulster camp when we can't hold onto squad players. We suffer a big exodus each season. We can't build any depth if we can't retain these guys and if our representation in the international set-up grows we will be in trouble.

Don't think there is anything rotten who are we losing who is worth keeping.
Afoa and Court are going for contracts we, righly, are not prepared to match (+Afoa domestic circumstance)
Muller retiring.
Doyle, if it homesickness, there is not much you can do.

Who else - Annett is the only one I can think of who we would like to keep.
The rest aren't good enough except McAllister who, if he leaves, is a special case.

Our issues are that our system is not producing players of the required, first team, standard - as mentioned elsewhere only 4 we can think of under 29.
Even squad level players are few and far between - Faloon comes to mind.
Our AIB teams are crap - only 1 of the top 14 teams and therefore squad players are playing at the required standard.

If those two issues were fixed the problem would, largely, go away.

So how come Leinster and Munster are able to maintain large squads, whereas every year we lose more players than we gain?

You need at least two decent players for each position and three decent players for specialist positions like the front row, halfbacks and fullback. You need at least five second rows too. If we can't hold onto the likes of Doyle and Annett we need to replace them like for like.

Their squads are not filled with as many sub standard players as ours i.e. they are worth keeping.
Most of the players leaving Ulster are because Ulster want to get rid of them

They keep their players because the do not have the 2 problems we have:

There Academy systems are producing players worth keeping, ours (threes aside) by and large isn't
Their squad players play at the top level of the AIB and get reasonable games week in week out, ours don't because, Hinch aside, our AIB teams are poor

I appreciate all that about our academy and our poor club sides, and I agree. But 'not worth keeping'- is it better to have no-one at all? Of course not. Ultimately you need to have players around, hopefully good ones who give you depth but if not you need someone to fill a shirt.

Of course you need cover players but I would rather O'Connor or Donnan plays than McComb
I would rather O'Hagan plays than McKinney
I would rather Scholes and Nelson play than McIlwaine and Cochrane

Our squad will be the same size next year as this

Maybe. Maybe.

I'll be extremely worried if we don't sign a hooker, a lock and an open side for next year though. Absolute minimum we need to bring in.

A lock will be signed (probably already is), if Doyle goes we will be looking for a IQ player from somewhere.
the 3rd hooker is likely to be Murphy or Jackson

Is it true that McIlroy bankrolls some of the overseas players pay checks? Aparently when he met Dan Carter in Augusta during the week he jokingly asked Carter to come to Ravenhill and said he would need to win the Masters a few times to afford Carter.

Pretty cool guy to have on your side.

I doubt it. Sounds like a joke...

There has been a lot of stories about this in the past though and he himself has hinted that he is putting money into Ulster rugby. This seemed almost like confirmation of that to me.

Nonsense.

Rory has put money in in a very small way.
Paying for social events for important guess and the like.
In Ulster income terms absolutely peanuts and nothing to do with player recruitment.

Unbelievable that people can be so gullible

GunsGerms wrote:There has been a lot of stories about this in the past though and he himself has hinted that he is putting money into Ulster rugby. This seemed almost like confirmation of that to me.

Really? It seemed like he was having a laugh to me. Just a tongue in cheek comment.

Notch wrote:

GunsGerms wrote:There has been a lot of stories about this in the past though and he himself has hinted that he is putting money into Ulster rugby. This seemed almost like confirmation of that to me.

Really? It seemed like he was having a laugh to me. Just a tongue in cheek comment.

Notch do you ever listen to newstalk? You possibly dont have it in the North? Anyway they have a programme called off the ball where they discuss Irish sports. The presenters of the show reckon he is involved financially in some way. Ill see if I can dig out the podcast.

If he was involved financially we might be able to hold on to our squad players...

Notch wrote:So how come Leinster and Munster are able to maintain large squads, whereas every year we lose more players than we gain?

I think one issue is they are producing more home grown players whereas we are bringing more overseas guys in.

Financially they have more resources too due to larger stadiums, sponsorship, favourable tax systems etc. and a lot of our budget is used up on marquee players at the expense of maintaining a larger squad.

I said in the past I was frustrated with losing quality young guys like Whitten, Faloon even the likes of Humph but yet we had massive salaries going to the likes of Bowe, Wilson, Afoa, Pienaar etc.

You can't have it all but player retention is a problem for us.

McIlroy does not bankroll players. He doesn't even pay for hisown tickets

I heard it was Darren Cave that started the whole rumour to see how far it would go.

I simply don't accept player retention is a problem.

Our problem is the lack of quality coming through the ranks
How many players who are from Ulster have we lost who we didn't want to - precious precious few

Take Whitten for a example when he left we had Spence, Cave, Wallace - with Marshall and Olding coming through.
Inspite of centre being his best position he got all his later games on the wing.
Sorry to lose him but he was not crucial at that stage - subsequent events re Spence and Wallace change that but we don't have a crystal ball.

Well we've let players go and regretted it later. We should be recognising a pattern now...

Which players have you in mind from say the last 5 years

Any players that have left either weren't good enough or too good to sit around being 3rd or 4th choice, too keep them would have cost too much if they were willing to sacrifice playing for an easy payday

geoff998rugby wrote:I simply don't accept player retention is a problem.

Our problem is the lack of quality coming through the ranks
How many players who are from Ulster have we lost who we didn't want to - precious precious few

Take Whitten for a example when he left we had Spence, Cave, Wallace - with Marshall and Olding coming through.
Inspite of centre being his best position he got all his later games on the wing.
Sorry to lose him but he was not crucial at that stage - subsequent events re Spence and Wallace change that but we don't have a crystal ball.

I agree but also agree with notch at the same time - is that ok or am I sitting on the fence here?   

geoff998rugby wrote:Which players have you in mind from say the last 5 years

Ryan Caldwell, Willie Faloon, Ian Whitten, Adam D'Arcy and Tommy Seymour all come to mind. I'm not sure we could have held onto Seymour as he wanted to play international rugby but the worrying thing is that Caldwell, Faloon and Seymour all massively improved from leaving Ulster. We said that they weren't good enough then they left and improved a lot as a result of that move... Tommy Seymour is now a better winger than Craig Gilroy in my opinion but he only really developed after he left. Chris Farrell, Niall Annett and Paddy McAllister leaving this year is going to come back and bite us on the arse I worry. I think in a few years those guys could all be playing very well for other teams. Then you have someone like Sean Dougall who came through the Ulster Academy and didn't get signed, before impressing at Munster.

Is the irony of us potentially needing to sign an Irish qualified open side whilst Connacht and Munster both have decent Pro12 standard opensides who started off in the Ulster Academy not lost on anybody else? Either Sean Dougall or Willie Faloon would be strengthen our back row options for next year. They aren't world beaters but they'd be useful to have.

We have been unlucky in having some players retire through injury and no-one could have anticipated the tragedy of losing Nevin Spence, but even so. We have a weak squad whilst there are Ulster born and bred players playing elsewhere in some of the positions we lack cover in.

Personally I don't think Doyle is better than Faloon or Dougal which makes me wonder about the recruitment strategy.

Whitten was let go - the Spence tragedy couldn't have been foreseen but Farrell hasn't delivered.

The other thing was McKinney and Nelson also haven't and we were told they were better than Ihumph/O'Connor and D'arcy respectively but that hasn't proved to be the case either.

I can understand why we'd let fringe players go if there were better players coming behind them but too often this hasn't happened.

None of the players mentioned would make out first XV and it comes back to the big issue I mentioned before

Our clubs are poor and do not offer players the level of game that leading Leinster and Munster clubs do.
Understandably players realise that to improve they need to leave because Dungannon, Ballymena, Malone, Belfast Harlequins etc are not very good.

Some of those players wanted to stay but were, effectively kicked out by the coaches of the day.
D'Arcy and Faloon come to mind on that score

Of the players leaving this year I agree Annett is a loss, Farrell has been over taken by McCloskey and McAllister needs to go because he needs to play some games at a level higher than our AIB teams can provide.

Not saying all is fine, far from it - our Academy and our club game need to improve big time, and some coaching decisions leave a lot to be desired - McLoughlin staying would have lost us Diack and Anscombe could lose us Fitzpatrick.

However to claim we are simply unable to retain players is way too simplistic