Ulster Rugby 2022/2023

First topic message reminder :

Thought it was time for an update on the thread so this is the new all things Ulster thread.

Some guesses:

Will Addison (lower leg) - April

Cormac Izuchukwu (knee) - during 6N

Jack McGrath (hip) - never

Luke Marshall (knee) - during 6N

Jordi Murphy (knee) - no idea

Jacob Stockdale (ankle) - After Christmas

Ben Moxham (groin) - After Christmas

(15-9) Mike Lowry, Craig Gilroy, James Hume, Stuart McCloskey, Ethan McIlroy, Billy Burns, John Cooney;

(1-8) Andrew Warwick, Rob Herring, Marty Moore, Alan O’Connor (Capt.), Sam Carter, Greg Jones, Nick Timoney, David McCann.

Replacements: Tom Stewart, Eric O’Sullivan, Ross Kane, Mick Kearney, Marcus Rea, Nathan Doak, Angus Curtis, Rob Lyttle.

What do I know?

KOTH is saying McGrath is back soon.
I’m amazed and to be honest the report of of us looking for a top class LH simply doesn’t make sense in this context.

I can’t help wondering if it will a bit like the Ferris comeback.
A last ditch effort to give it a go.

Hopefully I’m wrong, again

Maybe they don't trust that it will last and thats why they looking for one?

That's my thinking - hence the Ferris reference

4 weeks time out well spent. Can Ulster carry tonights mentality forward? If we can then we should be in with a shout at the season end.

That’s what you get when you play with a game plan and total commitment.

I keep reading Leinster we’re poor, and in many ways they were, but in many others ways they weren’t allowed to be good, because of the way Ulster played.

Some of the performances were excellent, we actually had the better back row - never thought I’d say that. Timoney just gets better and better, he is in that Ireland squad because he is one of the best backrowers available. That was McCanns best game in an Ulster shirt, the sort of form we hoped to see from him, but that the first time we have really seen it. Lastly in backrowers what gives with Marcus Rea. He is 24 and over the last 4 years has had about 6 games and every time is excellent. It doesn’t make sense  he is so much better than his brother. The centres were pure class.
The only negative for me was Carter, good in the line out but in open play he is physically weak.

As for Leinster Moloney tried hard, Connors was good when he came on.
Both Brynes were very poor, as was McGrath and Larmour. Henshaw did ok but Frawley was their class act, seems to be far more talented than either Brynes. Maybe he should be given game time at 10.
Other than Moloney those starting forwards need to take a good hard look at themselves.

It seemed we did a bit to Leinster what Connacht did to us. They didn't seem to expect the intensity and the pressure shook their composure and accuracy. I thought Penney played pretty well for them but the only time I became aware of Deegan was when he gave away the penalty.

Doak really looked the part when he came on, unlike Byrne H, I was pleasantly surprised by Warwick's contribution, and Moore had another great game. But Timoney and Hume stood out for me.

geoff999rugby wrote:That’s what you get when you play with a game plan and total commitment.

I keep reading Leinster we’re poor, and in many ways they were, but in many others ways they weren’t allowed to be good, because of the way Ulster played.

Some of the performances were excellent, we actually had the better back row - never thought I’d say that. Timoney just gets better and better, he is in that Ireland squad because he is one of the best backrowers available. That was McCanns best game in an Ulster shirt, the sort of form we hoped to see from him, but that the first time we have really seen it. Lastly in backrowers what gives with Marcus Rea. He is 24 and over the last 4 years has had about 6 games and every time is excellent. It doesn’t make sense  he is so much better than his brother. The centres were pure class.
The only negative for me was Carter, good in the line out but in open play he is physically weak.

As for Leinster Moloney tried hard, Connors was good when he came on.
Both Brynes were very poor, as was McGrath and Larmour. Henshaw did ok but Frawley was their class act, seems to be far more talented than either Brynes. Maybe he should be given game time at 10.
Other than Moloney those starting forwards need to take a good hard look at themselves.

I remember Steve Hansen was asked before a match "where will the game be won" and he said " the same place every game is won, in the tight five".
The November Internationals and this match have finally brought home to me how true that is. Furlong was pretty good and Molony was excellent but other than that our tight five was weak. Ulster's dominance there allowed them to get good attacking space which they'll be disappointed they didn't make more of. More importantly it allowed them pressure us when we had possession, it was rare that we good fast ball and usually we faced a set defense that was racing up as soon as the ball was lifted.

If all that wasn't enough then Ulster's poaching killed off our last hopes, any good ball we got was usually ended by a player getting isolated and an Ulster man getting over the ball quickly.

Leinster won't be too worried yet but the new URC format is definitely going to force us to play strong teams more often or we'll struggle again which is great for the competition.

Just heard McGrath was wearing his kit and activate in the pre match warm up against Leinster

Brilliant news

That is good news, if they can get him back and he can stay fit it willt ake some of the strain off on that side

Maybe if Frawley wants to be a 10 he could come up the road and create the future Ireland ginger 9/10 partnership!

That said, Billy had a decent game. In particular, it was his line speed and read of the ball that pressured the bad pass that Hume intercepted!

Really hope Lyttle can get a good run of games - for me, he's a class act. Ahead of Lowry in my book.

clivemcl wrote:Maybe if Frawley wants to be a 10 he could come up the road and create the future Ireland ginger 9/10 partnership!

That said, Billy had a decent game. In particular, it was his line speed and read of the ball that pressured the bad pass that Hume intercepted!

Really hope Lyttle can get a good run of games - for me, he's a class act. Ahead of Lowry in my book.

I was thinking about an approach to Healy on the same basis ...

Lyttle never seems to let the team down and maybe suffers, inappropriately, from poorly spelt nominative determinism.

Little seems frail.
Far too many injures.

Lowry has the talent, he is trying to hard.
He’ll learn.

He doesn't seem to be learning particularly quickly.

He needs to play where he is best - Fly Half.
Messing a youngster around by playing them in more than one position does them no favours.
Paddy Wallace suffered from this a lot.

No Vermuelen against Ospreys - he has tested positive.

Him not coming to after the Barbarians game was stupid to begin with and this just make it even more stupid, no idea how they came to that deal.
The good news is our back row looked great v Leinster so hopefully they dial up that kind of performance again this week

Teams up

(15-9) Mike Lowry, Robert Baloucoune, Angus Curtis, Stuart McCloskey, Ethan McIlroy, Billy Burns, John Cooney;
(1-8) Eric O’Sullivan, Bradley Roberts, Tom O’Toole, Kieran Treadwell, Alan O’Connor (Capt.), Sean Reidy, Nick Timoney, David McCann.
Replacements: Tom Stewart, Jack McGrath, Marty Moore, Mick Kearney, Marcus Rea, Nathan Doak, Stewart Moore, Craig Gilroy.

Reidy and McGrath back
Marcus Rea hasn't disappeared after one match
Also Carter dropped - good to see. If you don't cut your out whoever you are

Good to see McGrath back, I hope he can rediscover some form and stay fit

Good to see Mcgrath back in today's game, but that was about the only positive. Is it just me but why did anyone think it appropriate to say O'Sullivan was a suitable hooker? It would have made no difference to the eventual result, and Osprey's were good for the win, but surely it shows a lack of clear thought. There still seems to be an inability to convert pressure to points. Is there too much confidence in the maul, should the 3-point option be taken more frequently. Ospreys won by taking the points when on offer, Ulster didn't.

I've felt that under McFarland, Ulster take the points way less often. And in my opinion, it's instructed by the coach, and it's a question of mentality.

Teams who take the 3 points to go 1/2 points ahead of the opposition in the first half, are not the teams that win games comfortably. I guess what I'm saying is - the team goes for the line out because they tell themselves they will score.

The mentality of 'we might not score, so we should just take the 3' is a negative mindset and not a champion mindset.

Now... I could be wrong on that. And even if I'm right, it doesn't always work out that way but... still I've been glad to see an ulster team over last few years who at least approach every minute believing they have ability.

Unfortunately, the longer that mindset fails to deliver, the more likely some of that team are to turn to despair, lethargy etc.

For me, that kinda felt like it was too disjointed. Perhaps too many changes to the squad in one week for any momentum from last week to work out.

Compared to last week - Ulster seemed to manage a lot less turnovers, whereas Ospreys seemed significantly better than last week's Leinster at poaching from our isolated ball carriers.

I do wonder if we might have sneaked that in the end had we not had a mare with our two hookers.

Good points Clive, I don't think there is right answer, it's always easy to say a decision was poor in hindsight. Like me shouting at Doak for the kick pass at the death. If it had worked I'd be raving at how good it was, instead I'm shouting why kick it away.
I don't think the hooker situation overly affected the final result. The lack of points from all the pressure in the first half was the issue in my view. The scrum was pants even with a full time fit hooker, which surprised me. I didn't think it would be dominant but I didn't expect it to fall apart.

Unclear wrote:I don't think the hooker situation overly affected the final result.  

Cant agree with that. We struggled in the first half but it fell apart in the second.
The main reason for that was Tom Stewart was unable to push because of his injury.
Francis locked in McGrath leaving the hooker and LH to target O'Toole/Moore.
Two against one - it is hardly surprising we suffered.
A number of second half scrums gave the Ospreys field position from penalties.

I do agree that we failed to convert possession into points and that is an issue.
It has two very simple reasons.
One the lack of power in our scrum.
We have too many locks who cant make the hard yards - which makes the fact Treadwell plays so rarely confusing.
On a positive note McCann did well again, Timoney  continues to improve and good to see Reidy back.
Marcus Rea has shown he has a ability to over turn possession at the breakdown and should get more game time (definitely over his brother and Jones)
Unfortunately Ferris doesn't seem to know which brother is which (great player but not the sharpest tool in the box)

In the backs - Doak will get criticism for that kick but I thought it was a fair call given the lack of forward power and the strength of the Ospreys defence.
If Coney does go I am comfortable with it.
McCloskey is a class act and the most important player in the Ulster set up. He should be in any squad of 30 players named by Farrell.
He performs at a level that is comparable with Henshaw and Ringrose.
He is better than Aki and miles of anyone else you could mention (Frawley and Hume potential not withstanding)

The elephant in the room for me is Burns.
I want him to succeed but in the end he simply isn't good enough
Baloucoune hardly say the ball and it comes down to Burns not making the right choices at the right time and far too many plain bad plays.
Lowry should be 10 - the longer he plays 15 the further back he will go.
I thought McIlroy did well
Madigan is fit and available and I would, at the very least, have him on the bench next week.

Geoff I agree that (Marcus) Rea and McCann are improving which is great to see, and McIlroy certainly looks good to me, but I think suffers from comparisons with Baloucoune. No one comes out of those sort of comparisons too well.

Agree that Burns doesn't seem to be performing, but don't necessarily see Lowry as the solution. Agree he needs proper game time to show one way or the other. Happy to be proved wrong ... and being moved around will do his game no good in any position.

Ulsters decision making was poor and has been a feature this season, they need to gte better at reading games, knowing when to take points etc.

Couple of instances during the game, Burns in the first half when we had a 3 man overlap put in a floated pass, allowed the defnders to get across and stop it, simple hands would have saw us in to score.

Lowry later in second half when he went steaming through the defence (what a run that was) at the end made the wrong decision took contact and gave the hard out the back pass, had he played the pass simply before cotnact the support runner was in.

It's these kind of decisions that Ulster need to get right, thats the reason McCloskey doesn't make the step up to international top class player as too often he will take the contact then look for the pass rather than playing the pass before contact.

The way he does it can open the door of a tight defence but he needs to understand when the defence is already open and doing that only allows them to get back, it's all about making good decisions on the field and regretatbly Ulster too often do not.

So is Curtis not seen as an option at 10 at all?

Another observation - Leinster and Connacht was 14-12 just before half time and it ended 47-19.

I don't mean to take away from the previous weeks defensive effort, but it just goes to show how little there is in it sometimes. The victory over Leinster was great to see, but not necessarily a sign of how good we are. Sometimes you get the rub of the green. Hume's final score was actually fairly high risk. 78th minute with only a 3 point lead and an attempt at an intercept. To be fair, it was a huge mistake by Frawley to attempt that pass, but still - that incident in itself was fine margins in the context of decision making. Fail to intercept and Leinster had an unmarked man on the outside with open field in front of him and game lost.

I guess the Osprey's game has just brought me right back to earth after the Leinster high, and now I'm getting cynical about even that win.

Another thing to note - apart from one stand out catch from McIlroy, would it be fair to say that Ulster this season have not been particularly good in competing for kick catches?

Not that I am aware Clive.

I disagree with Neil about McCloskey - he has to break the gain line for Ulster rather than pass most times for the two reason we are weak

1 - Most of the forward cant break the gain line consistently
2 - Our 10 isn't good enough. Watch the likes of Marcus Smith, Henry Slade and Paddy Jackson their passing is on a different planet to Burns

You have to earn the right to go wide  - we don't because of problem 1 and problem 2
As a consequence McCloskey is having to do a large part of the work load of most players with 4,5,6,7,8 on their backs and rarely receives quality line breaking passes from his Fly Half.

I don't disagree with that Geoff and I am not referring to that side of his play, what I am referring to is the times when he should make the pass to a man in space on the outside. He still decides to take the contact then try the offload rather than drawing the man and making the pass to put the guy on the outside away.

It happened against Connacht where he had a man in space on the outside, all he had to do was make the pass and the guy was away through a gap as their defence for once was not organised. He didn't he took the contact and by the time he got the offload away connacht had filtered across enough to stop the attack.

Its nit picky but its the difference between a good player and a top international player

Again I wouldn't disagree with that but what I would say is
Henshaw makes the odd mistake when deciding to off load or not, Ringrose makes as many as McCloskey and Aki makes far more.

Absolutely it shouldn't stop him being in the Ireland set up, not just because of the points you mention above but also because if a coach is a good coach they should see McCloskey and all his strengths and think I can coach him to make better decisions and that would make him a huge weapon.

Decision making isnt something which comes naturally in general anyway it has to be coached so any good coach should think they could help him take that next step but for some reason Ireland coaches just aren't interested in him.

Anyways my overall point is that Ulster need to get better at decision making both in terms of in play and also knowing when the game is right one to take the points rather than always feeling that going for the corner is the best option even when it isn't working etc

The good thing is that I believe there is some real talent in the squad and with the right decision making skills and maybe a few signings here or there in the right postiions they can be a real top contending team

Brad Roberts, Marty Moore and Tom Stewart all unavailable this week after injuries last week, front row starting to look a little on the light side with those 3 out.

The match between Clermont and Ulster (Saturday at 6.30 p.m.) will take place. For the moment, no other case of Covid has been detected in the workforce of the ASM. But with one case declared positive (Cancoriet), the ASM will have to do without the unvaccinated, in particular Moala and Matsushima.

(15-9) Mike Lowry, Robert Baloucoune, James Hume, Stuart McCloskey, Ethan McIlroy, Billy Burns, John Cooney;

(1-8) Andrew Warwick, Rob Herring, Tom O’Toole, Alan O’Connor (Capt.), Kieran Treadwell, Marcus Rea, Nick Timoney, Duane Vermeulen;

Replacements: John Andrew, Jack McGrath, Ross Kane, Sam Carter, Greg Jones, Sean Reidy, Nathan Doak, Stewart Moore.

Vermuelen starts, 5/2 split on the benc

Who has back three experience either on the bench on positions 9-13?

I'm getting vague flashbacks to a game a few years ago where we had to play Paul Marshall on the wing for much of the game.

Hume started on the wing didn't he? I think it would likely be him

Hume would go on the wing.
If Lowry went off McIlroy would go to full back

Congrats Ulster! Great win

When they went down by a point I thought that was it and Clermont would take over but credit to the team because they stuck to it and pressed on to get the win

Really impressive stuff. Congrats Ulster.

Yea, similar to Neil I had kinda assumed we were going to be on the losing end once we lost Balacoune and Clermont came back into the game.

Fair play, I definitely think the Ulster try was the right call, the exact timing of the whistle isn’t as important as the question ’did the referee cause any Clermont defenders to stop trying?’ and the answer is no.

Rory and the commentary team I thought were too kind though about Barnes reffing performance.

Am I alone in thinking the Clermont grounding in the dead ball corner was dubious? There was no downward pressure from the hands to my eye.

But yes, somehow we came away with the win despite dropping off for a lot of the middle part of the game. A few key moments from subs too - Carter, Jones, Reidy and Doak that I recall.

And lastly… would take Hanrahan over Burns if he wanted to return to Ireland. Although… ideally we need to be seeing someone with promise in that position younger than both of them.

I was watching the game with no sound on so didn't hear what the commentary said about it but I was surprised when that try was given as well Clive, looked to me like there was no downward pressure or control from hands. Didn't matter in the end so its all good but yeah I was surprised when it was awarded.

I told my mates that we would win two of the last four games and lose the other two.

That makes me the perfect pundit.

Unfortunately we lost the two I thought we would win, and won the two I thought we would lose

That makes me a useless pundit!

Strange run of results

JJ is not the answer.
BB remains our weakness.
Lowry is the only youngster for 10.
We seem to have plenty of prospective 9s but no other 10s coming through.

Some great performance.
We were worried about the scrum Warwick and O’Toole did enough, fair play.
At last Marcus Rea is showing his class, he is the same age as Chris Henry was when he made his breakthrough.
Actually. pleasing Vermuelen has a quietism game, we didn’t win because he played.

Cooney, McCloskey, Timoney, Hume, McIlroy and Lowry all excellent.

Got some inside info on Addison.

After the 6N seems most likely.
Currently in physio at the Royal.

Same source stated that this Ulster camp is the happiest in been in many years.
A lot of young kids who have come up together who bond really well at the same time are being helped by the old hands.
It seems clear to me that Vermuelen, Madigan, McGrath are there as much for their coaching as for their playing

A great result, but ultimately meaningless unless we follow it up against Northampton and all subsequent games.  It is fantastic that we can beat anyone "on our day", but we need to make sure we can win consistently when it is "just a normal" game.

There seems to be progress, but Christmas inter-pros and Northampton double header will give a more realistic assessment.  The winning mentality needs to be embedded, not least because I have tickets for the game at Franklins Gardens.

Excellent that McGrath is on the way back, brilliant to see Vermuelen, lets hope Baloucoune isn't out for long and Addison can come back next year.

What's the odds on a crisis by Christmas?

Hardly meaningless - a couple of more points and we make the play offs.

The key thing is the next four are at home - we must win at least 3 of those.
If we win next weekend there is every chance we will play both Clermont and Saints who will not be particularly interested in January.
If we win the next two games in the Heineken I would rest players against Saints.
I do have tickets for the Saints game myself - my cousin is a Saints ST holder

No more points and no play off ...

The Leinster win was great, but losing at Ospreys knocks everything back. Especially as they were justified winners. There needs to be consistency, preferably winning consistently.

Northampton is about as close as the Ulster team gets to me unless there is progression in Europe and a tie against one of the London clubs. I have hope as the last time I was at Franklins Gardens I stood up for a bonus point win (followed frustratingly by a loss at Ravenhill).

I do regularly get frustrated at largely similar lineups giving drastically different performances from week to week.

I don’t like to be too negative, but I think Unclear has a bit of a point. Given our track record, the win against Clermont means very little for the games ahead unfortunately.

But it does improve our chances, there’s no denying that.