Ulster Rugby 2017-2018 Part 2

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Carberry is 22, McPhillips is 21. Is this talk about sticking with McPhillips and hoping he turns out to be a gem maybe a tad naive? Carberry at a year older is being talked about as though he was the second coming and all this despite Sexton and Byrne and a whole backline of stellar players potentially blocking him. By contrast, it's almost as if we only know the name of McPhillips because we had no choice. A year ago the thinking was Jackson and Nelson. We then were saying Cooney can play 10 a bit. Then we signed Lealifano. Surely if McPhillips was the hot prospect, the coaches would have featured him more before Lealifano left.
In fact during Leanlifano's time here wasn't Nelson the preferred bench 10, and indeed started 3 games at 10 before Christmas, but then got injured?

Not meaning to be super negative, I hope I'm wrong. Cooney is a perfect example of a player suddenly shining from nowhere. I guess Ulster coaches know better than me if he's a real prospect worth thrusting into the limelight or not.

Coetzee at fault for both tries

Timoney for the second for me. He is miles out of the line and creates the dogleg. If you go like that you have to get the man. We seem to have a horrible laissez-faire attitude to the breakdown and we must be up at missing 1 in 4 tackles at this stage. Even if we steal a win this bubble is going to burst in a big way soon

Ben Whitehouse having a mare

Don’t really think he is Marty. He’s just being himself. Ulster are just spectacularly dumb in the penalties they concede

Sorry Stand but no way was AOC in from the side, the maul wheeled and he never changed his bind. The same thing Cheetahs seem to have been doing constantly as AOC seemed to be pointing out to the ref

Maybe AoC was fine but Rea was standing at the back of the cheetahs side. The lineout before we literally threw the jumper across the lineout. It’s just daft.

Yeah the lineout as a whole is a mess but we had one at the end of the first half with a Cheetahs player standing away from the maul pulling at Herring trying to take him out of it and nothing given, just a lottery

Squad depth isn't there, three points from that isn't disastrous though given who we had missing, especially Addison and Gilroy dropping out today.

I’d have taken that amount of points before the tour. So many work ons there. O’Toole, Rea, Deysel and Stewart positives for me. The less said about our defence the better.

And Herbst and Reidy through the game dodger. In fairness at altitude to see O’Toole still going strong in minute 80 is positive.

To be fair 3pts isn't bad

Ulster's never say die gets them more points again

To be honest that could have been worse.
To pull a draw from that with the bare bones of a squad after a 5 day turn around is good enough.
Our defence was bloody awful but didn't Deysel look up for it when he came on, a possible rebirth perhaps?
Anyway, there will be teams that come unstuck against the Cheetahs so that's another get out of jail free card used.

Deysel looks big but immobile. Given how poor our two locks were I’d be looking at him in there with Rea, Murphy and Coetzee in the backrow

Standulstermen wrote:Deysel looks big but immobile. Given how poor our two locks were I’d be looking at him in there with Rea, Murphy and Coetzee in the backrow

He's 6'3, just too small.

He’s physical. Rea at 6 provides a decent option. It’s worth exploring imo

Shanahan deserves a mention as he turned round his Kings performance dramatically, and tackling the big lock was memorable. Stewart looked OK too when he came on.

The repeating problems are mainly up front, with a dysfunctional lineout and an incapacity to defend the maul. The general defensive line looks as secure as Theresa May being PM next year.

Lets put the SA trip in context now with the Weegies currently 31-0 down against the Kings 20 mins left to play.

Pete330v2 wrote:Lets put the SA trip in context now with the Weegies currently 31-0 down against the Kings 20 mins left to play.

38-21 now but Kings won’t be caught.

3rd YC for Kings and DTH gets the TBP on the 80th minute.  

TBP and FT.

Well done the Kings. 5 points on the board moves them up the table to 5th but Edinburgh and Dragons have still to play.

Yep, taking 7 points from our SA tour looking pretty solid right now.

7pts is a solid return but it should have been more. The interesting thing is the kings look better and the cheetahs worse than last year. For me Timoney and Herring are worries as are both locks. O’toole, O’sullivan, kernohan and the cameos of Rea and Deysel are positives long with Marcell not being broken

To be the only undefeated team and not too of the conference just shows you the importance of bonus points. We need to get over the line a bit more rather than relying on Cooneys’ boot. And to be fair, that’s been the game plan. We’ve turned down the points for the line out pretty often. We need to be much more clinical and make our possession and territory count. Too many times in opposition 22 and retreating with nothing.

Still though, 3wins and a draw has to be considerably better than even the most optimistic supporter would have predicted!

Enjoy it while it lasts as the wheels are being removed shortly.

Much better performance at the weekend. Both SA teams looking much stronger this season so that is a successful enough trip.

Shanahan showed he can do a job at this level after all. Burns was much better at 10, Deysel had probably his best game for Ulster.

MacFarland has a lot of work to do but that rounds off a decent start to the season.

So can we field a backline this week?

If Gilroy and Addison make it we will be fine. And I think they should.

If Gilroy and Addison are passed fit we could field the team below

Addison, Gilroy, Cave, McCloskey, Kernohan; McPhillips, Cooney;
O'Sullivan, Andrew, O'Toole, O'Connor, Treadwell, Henderson, Deysel, Rea

Bench
McBurney, Kane, Warwick, Dalton, Timoney, Shanahan, Curtis, Nelson

If they're out we're looking at maybe Baloucoune coming in to the 23

That's not too shabby considering the injury list so all may not be lost especially with Munster not exactly coasting along at the moment. That being said, we're hardly coasting ourselves so there goes that little iota of optimism.

The only worry would be the scrum, there are times it looks like it can hold it's own and others like it's getting pushed around for fun

Best and Stockdale are next to come back over the inter pros. Maybe bench this week and start next? Maybe just fire them in? Best is a 60 min player anyway so could start.

McPhillips starting for the As this weekend, no Lowry or Hume...busy this weekend maybe?

And with that



Munster team

Munster: Mike Haley; Andrew Conway, Dan Goggin, Rory Scannell, Keith Earls; Joey Carbery, Alby Mathewson; Dave Kilcoyne, Niall Scannell, Stephen Archer; Tadhg Beirne, Billy Holland; Peter O’Mahony (C), Tommy O’Donnell, CJ Stander.

Replacements: Kevin O’Byrne, James Cronin, Ciaran Parker, Jean Kleyn, Arno Botha, Duncan Williams, Ian Keatley, Sammy Arnold.

We're fooked

We're worse than fooked!

Munster are making damn sure they win this one not that they'd have needed as strong a side as that to do the job. We can't compete with that pack surely?
Nice to see Munster have their medical joker in harness at last, it's a shame we couldn't have had one.....or two.....or more.

And with that, the Ulster lineup:

(15-9): Peter Nelson, Craig Gilroy, Darren Cave, Angus Curtis, Angus Kernohan, Billy Burns, John Cooney;

(1-8): Andrew Warwick, Adam McBurney, Ross Kane, Alan O’Connor (Capt), Iain Henderson, Matthew Rea, Nick Timoney, Jean Deysel.

Replacements: John Andrew, Eric O’Sullivan, Tom O’Toole, Kieran Treadwell, Clive Ross, Dave Shanahan, Michael Lowry, James Hume.

Strange seeming Ross on the bench, would have had money on one of the three young backrows from the As would have been a better option there ahead of him.

McPhillips is really suffering from his lack of versatility

I will be sitting down to watch this knowing we're very, very likely to lose and probably by some margin. I don't see where we can get the upper hand.
The last time I said that it was when we sent an A side to Thomond and won with a little to spare so it's my luck comment

I am excited though, if only because we'll perhaps get a look at Lowry as part of the senior team. I've seen little to nothing of him yet heard high praise.

No Cloete might be a good thing for Ulster as he's looked good this season and given Ulsters inability to resource rucks it may mean a few less turnovers but with Beirne, POM and TOD there it may mean quite a few turnovers still

Looking forward to seeing Curtis. Was impressed by him playing n the u20s

https://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/ulster-rugby/alternative-ulster-increasing-cast-list-of-imports-from-leinster-hoping-to-turn-tide-in-kingspan-stadium-37366247.html

Anyone seen much of Aaron Sexton? I saw one or two clips and lots of hype about him. Can run the 100m in about 10.5 seconds at 17 and isn't small either.

Pete O’Mahony notches Munster’s fifth try with Carbery kicking his 4th of 5 conversions after 51 minutes.

36-7 at TP.

Edit: Make that 57-7 as Keatley converts Earls’ try.

Uncomfortable viewing even with John Andrew’s YC at 14 mins to go.

Sure who would have Carbery when you could have Burns eh?

POM is turning the ball over just for fun.

Ignoring for a second that Ulster have been embarrassing, how do Munster turn around a performance difference like that from one week to the next?

I don’t know. Looks like someone put a rocket up their collective backsides. Having said that you cannot underestimate players like Holland to getting the team up and running.

clivemcl wrote:Ignoring for a second that Ulster have been embarrassing, how do Munster turn around a performance difference like that from one week to the next?

Playing at home against a weaker side. Ulster and Ospreys weren't their first team due to injuries and being afraid respectively.

One of those nights unfortunately.

Munster backlash from their performance against Blues, Thomond Park on a Saturday night and Ulster with a massive injury list. Couldn't have gone much worse.

The squad need to write that one off. Get a result against Connacht at Ravenhill and hopefully go into the Tigers game with a lot of players back.

I know Best will be back, anyone got an update on Stockdale, Coetzee, Herbst, Addison, Jordi Murphy and Ludik? I really hope we haven't lost Henderson and Cooney now as well.

Painful viewing and embarassing to boot as another gutless, shameful result hits us with reality right in the chops. I know there are a raft of injuries and I know we've only just started yet another coaching ticket but christ that's some utterly crap rugby and perhaps a true measure of what to expect this year. I knew we'd do well to keep within 20 points but wow.

Classic Munster. One week, yawn - the next week, killer eyes.

Don't know why questions have to be asked about the contrasts... they've been at it for decades.

clivemcl wrote:Ignoring for a second that Ulster have been embarrassing, how do Munster turn around a performance difference like that from one week to the next?

They put out their seconds team Or they have a decent scrum half this week.

62-7.

So basically, Burns is like Ian Humphrey’s standard, and we’ve nobody worth speaking of behind him.

We said Burns need time. When will he have had enough time to judge him?

Yea, injury list, yea yea yea. We chose to have an even smaller squad this year, and it isn’t strong.

A top class team wouldn’t have been signing One of Carbery or Burns, they have been signing both.