Ulster vs Edinburgh - Pro14 7th Sept

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Last Game
Edinburgh 20 - 32 Ulster

Form:
Only played on game, but based upon that, Ulster - Fantastic, Edinburgh terrible

For some unknown reason Ulster open the campaign with two home games, whereas Edinburgh start with two away games.

Ulster have a new coach, who knows the Scottish players pretty well, so is aware of their strengths and weakness.  Edinburgh were only marginally better than Ulster last season, during which time Ulster had a lot of off field stuff to deal with, not something they'll have to worry about this time round....I hope.

This has home win written all over it.

Artful_Dodger wrote:Fantastic result.  One of those games that nobody deserved to lose.  I think the trys are as important as the result.  

My man of the match and man of the two game season so far is Will Addison, he's been exceptional.  Cooney is an Ulster legend already.

Edinburgh deserved to win that as they were the better organised team. Agree on Addison who looks to be really solid with a touch of finesse. Ulster have lost 5 Irish internationals, the world class Piutau and the accomplished Lealiifano from their backline so tries are going to be much harder to come by this season. Cooney should consider putting his name to a wine as it would be a fine vintage.
Ulster have 'got away with two' games but they will be found out when a few injuries hit - still it seems the Oompah band has been given it's marching orders, and if Ulster start showing their 2nd half heart again maybe the crowd will realise that they can shout without them?

The Great Aukster wrote:

Artful_Dodger wrote:Fantastic result.  One of those games that nobody deserved to lose.  I think the trys are as important as the result.  

My man of the match and man of the two game season so far is Will Addison, he's been exceptional.  Cooney is an Ulster legend already.

Edinburgh deserved to win that as they were the better organised team. Agree on Addison who looks to be really solid with a touch of finesse. Ulster have lost 5 Irish internationals, the world class Piutau and the accomplished Lealiifano from their backline so tries are going to be much harder to come by this season. Cooney should consider putting his name to a wine as it would be a fine vintage.
Ulster have 'got away with two' games but they will be found out when a few injuries hit - still it seems the Oompah band has been given it's marching orders, and if Ulster start showing their 2nd half heart again maybe the crowd will realise that they can shout without them?

Can't disagree with any of this.

What I would say is though is that we've got some top operators still to come. Haven't seen Marty Moore or Rory Best this season.....grandpa that Rory is now. Also lost O'Toole in the first game with Herbst only playing a little, so are really down to our third choice tighthead in Kane. That not withstanding that Kane has been very very good. We have the ever solid Ludik to return, adds depth to the back three.

I think Burns will come good, I just worry that we are very very slight in the half backs with Cooney and Burns. Jordi Murphy wasn't brilliant but you can forgive him that in his first game. Speight needs to look for more work in my opinion. Addison has been the signing so far, Sale have lost a real operator in him.

I think we have got away with two good wins by the skin of our teeth but will only get better.

Very good result from a dodgy performance. So many iffy performances but if we continue to pick up wins then suddenly nobody remembers the dodgy ones. The fight is there but we were second best for long periods against a well drilled side. The are positives and a lot of very good players are still finding their feet mind you.

I thought Murphy grew into the game. He had to as he was poor in the first half. I've seen enough of Addison at sale to know he is quality. He was in England training camps but then had a run of injuries. He'll be a cracking signing. Speight is lazy. He wants the ball to come to him, not him to the ball. Don't get me wrong but when he gets the ball he's pretty good. I'm still not sure on burns. I think he'll do OK but he can be a bit flakey

I think speight has done ok. In fairness to him he set up the chance for Gilroys score. He isn’t a Piutau mind you who can create something from nothing so maybe he suffers a little by comparison.

Standulstermen wrote:Very good result from a dodgy performance. So many iffy performances but if we continue to pick up wins then suddenly nobody remembers the dodgy ones. The fight is there but we were second best for long periods against a well drilled side. The are positives and a lot of very good players are still finding their feet mind you.

A very fair assessment. I couldn't decide if Gilroy was superb or if the Luvvies wide defence was poor, probably a bit of both; they gave him space to attack and he made hay. However, I think the last second penalty was "questionable" to say the least

jimbopip wrote:

Standulstermen wrote:Very good result from a dodgy performance. So many iffy performances but if we continue to pick up wins then suddenly nobody remembers the dodgy ones. The fight is there but we were second best for long periods against a well drilled side. The are positives and a lot of very good players are still finding their feet mind you.

A very fair assessment. I couldn't decide if Gilroy was superb or if the Luvvies wide defence was poor, probably a bit of both; they gave him space to attack and he made hay. However, I think the last second penalty was "questionable" to say the least

I think a lot of the penalties were questionable, I don't think Edinburgh released clearly after the tackle once yet think they only got penalised once for it.

First half in particular, when Ulster went wide they kept coming back in side the Edinburgh defence when they had space to attack on the outside. It meant they were almost tripping over their own team mates at times and coming back into two of three Edinburgh players. When they finally decided to go outside they got some joy from it

Two very frustrating results for Edinburgh and two games we could have won. Got to get smarter. Still, plenty of promise and early days.

Super game and a great advert for the Pro14.

From and Ulster POV, another great performance by Cooney, who has become a talisman for Ulster.

Really impressed by Addison, he was immaculate under the high ball and looks classy in attack. He'd have been my MOTM at the weekend and looks a great signing.

Less impressed by Burns, although it is early days. I didn't really say anything from him that suggests he's even as good as McPhillips let alone offering more than him at 10.

Speight was pretty underwhelming too, struggled defensively and apart from the role in Gilroys try didn't produce much.

Murphy was solid but unspectacular, bar that one linebreak,  that said difficult to impress at 7 when the ref doesn't allow a competition at the breakdown. Still believe he'll prove a great signing and a good foil for Henderson and Marcel to do the carrying.  

Overall very good second half performance but a bit fortunate to come away with the win against a very good Edinburgh side.

rodders wrote:Super game and a great advert for the Pro14.

From and Ulster POV, another great performance by Cooney, who has become a talisman for Ulster.

Really impressed by Addison, he was immaculate under the high ball and looks classy in attack. He'd have been my MOTM at the weekend and looks a great signing.

Less impressed by Burns, although it is early days. I didn't really say anything from him that suggests he's even as good as McPhillips let alone offering more than him at 10.

Speight was pretty underwhelming too, struggled defensively and apart from the role in Gilroys try didn't produce much.

Murphy was solid but unspectacular, bar that one linebreak,  that said difficult to impress at 7 when the ref doesn't allow a competition at the breakdown. Still believe he'll prove a great signing and a good foil for Henderson and Marcel to do the carrying.  

Overall very good second half performance but a bit fortunate to come away with the win against a very good Edinburgh side.

I'd have had Gilroy as my MOTM, he was going looking for work and was trying to cause problems for Edinburgh

On the breakdown, I think the ref was awful. I was at the game and saw a few things and wondered did I see it right, on rewatching the game I had and saw a few other things that was just infuriating.

He was telling players not to move when caught at the ruck then penalising them for not rolling away, Edinburghs first try came from an Edinburgh penalty after Coetzee got over the ball and won it only for Hamilton to come in from the Ulster side and clear him out and the ref penalised Coetzee.

Agree I thought the ref was awful. Still the biggest issue with the league.

rodders wrote:Agree I thought the ref was awful. Still the biggest issue with the league.

I think it's an issue in the game as a whole, I watched the Sale Worcester game yesterday and JP Doyle had problems with the breakdown as players were repeatedly playing the ball while off their feet and he was constantly warning then but not punishing them

Rugby rules are simply not clear cut enough. I watched Toulon-Castres game yesterday and refereeing was beyond awful (apart from deserved red to Bastaraud..). The problem isn't within the league.

Agree Gilroy had a great second half as well. Scored a super try, although Cooney's support line made it in the end, and looked dangerous every time he had the ball.

I just felt Addison and Cooney had a bit more influence on the game, everything good from Ulster seemed to involve them.

VinceWLB wrote:Rugby rules are simply not clear cut enough. I watched Toulon-Castres game yesterday and refereeing was beyond awful (apart from deserved red to Bastaraud..). The problem isn't within the league.

I tend to disagree, like I said JP Doyle was telling players to get their hands off so he knew there was an offence being committed but just choose not to punish it

In the Ulster game you had the ref telling an Ulster player to not move so as not to disrupt a ruck and the scrum half then turns around and penalises him for not rolling away. That's not a lack of clarity that's just plain stupid

Highlight here



From an Edinburgh PoV we put in a great performance and, whereas last week we could have won, this week we should have won. I have a bad feeling that 6 point swing will come back to haunt us at the end of the season. Both tries were superb and it was great to see our backline in full swing after an underwhelming performance form them last week.

On the topic of dodgy reffing there was a clear obstruction for Ulster's first try (the guy that should have been in the gap to make the tackle had just been obstructed), but unfortunately the highlights don't show the controversial penalty decision at the end for Ulster's kick for glory.

Either way, given the lead we had we should never have been in that position to lose it at the death, and if we had just gathered the restart we would have still won it (the Scottish curse!).

Ultimately though it was a big performance from Edinburgh and if we can keep that up throughout the season (and ideally through 80 minutes each game) we will cause a lot of teams problems. As Cockerill said after the game - Ulster will know they got away with that one!

RDW_Scotland wrote:Highlight here



From an Edinburgh PoV we put in a great performance and, whereas last week we could have won, this week we should have won. I have a bad feeling that 6 point swing will come back to haunt us at the end of the season. Both tries were superb and it was great to see our backline in full swing after an underwhelming performance form them last week.

On the topic of dodgy reffing there was a clear obstruction for Ulster's first try (the guy that should have been in the gap to make the tackle had just been obstructed), but unfortunately the highlights don't show the controversial penalty decision at the end for Ulster's kick for glory.

Either way, given the lead we had we should never have been in that position to lose it at the death, and if we had just gathered the restart we would have still won it (the Scottish curse!).

Ultimately though it was a big performance from Edinburgh and if we can keep that up throughout the season (and ideally through 80 minutes each game) we will cause a lot of teams problems. As Cockerill said after the game - Ulster will know they got away with that one!

I think the ref decided the Ulster player (think it was Cave) was entitled not to change his line on the dummy run because he was onside when he started the run. He asked the TMO if Cave was onside and if he changed the angle of his run at any point, the TMO said no he was onside and didn't change his run. But yeh, very easily could have been given as taking out a defender. I've always thought the whole entitled to occupy space thing is very ambiguous when it comes to blocking chasers as well.

Addisons 28 carries is the highest recorded by Opta in a Pro14 game since they started recording the data in 2010/11

marty2086 wrote:Addisons 28 carries is the highest recorded by Opta in a Pro14 game since they started recording the data in 2010/11

He's been exceptional in every facet of fullback play. He reminds me a lot of Jared Payne's early success at fullback for us. I think he is worth a man of the match award across one of the first two games.

Addison is a great player, there was a fair few calling for him to get into the England squad not long ago, glad to see him doing well

Haven't seen anything of Haley for Munster yet, but both very talented players

Was Addison not in an England squad or training squad at least a while back?

Safe bet Addison will feature in autumn internationals to get him locked in. Burns... I'm not convinced. Not yet anyway.

He was apparently in camp before the season started so seems Joe is likely a fan, don't think theres a rush to lock him in. England won't be picking him and he's here for at least two years so not like anyone else will be snapping him up unless he qualifies elsewhere

Burns and Cooney haven't quite clicked for me and Burns is playing flat too often, he needs to switch things up a bit. Against Edinburgh there was space in behind that could have been exploited but Burns was in no real position to make the most of it

Just got around to watching the game. It certainly was a cracking game, very enjoyable to watch.


Addison looks like he'll be picked in the autumn squad on merit.