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.

I suppose that a losing bonus point should be some cause for celebration but I still think that was 3 points lost. I don't understand how the scrum went to the Stormers, not that it would have made much difference I suppose given their superiority.

Marshall looked good when he came on hopefully he can build some match fitness now.

That was a weird conversation betwen the ref and TMO for that disallowed try. The ref was asking him one question and the TMO was repeatedly answering another question the ref hadn't asked.

I think the Stormers player hit the ball so should have been an Ulster scrum but it is what it is, can't give a team a 14 point lead early doors.

Callum Reid still lands on the ball. Who the scrum is for is not even the question. Stormers knock on. Loose ball in the in goal area. Advantage played to Ulster, Ulster land on the ball (Callum Reid). They just got confused by thinking Reid couldn't have scored in an instance where he lost control. He DIDN"T lose control, the ball was knocked out of his hands. But he still lands on it. Is that not a grounding?

How the TMO or ref said the Stormers player knocked Reid's hand rather than the ball Is beyond me.

We was robbed.

I don't think the ref could see on the screen properly and the TMO seemed to be doing everything he could not to answer the actual question. Really weird exchange.

I think no try would have happened as he didn't have control when he landed on ball but should have been an Ulster scrum at the very least

I think the game just showed the poor standard of refereeing at the moment. There needs to be a huge effort put into improving this. Neither the ref nor the TMO seemed to think through what they were saying and seemed to have convinced themselves there was no try and were trying to provide justification for that decision, rather than working through the sequence of events and coming to a conclusion.

Still you win some and lose some, best not to have to rely on the refs interpretation if you can.

https://www.the42.ie/stormers-v-ulster-disallowed-try-5723227-Mar2022/

Don Alfonso wrote:https://www.the42.ie/stormers-v-ulster-disallowed-try-5723227-Mar2022/

Life's a bitch and then you die. Need to move on from this, the result won't and can't be changed. Just remember all the comments that some Welsh posters have made about Irish home TMOs and the replies.

It's still a b*gger though

I know on this occasion it looks like I'm biased (and I am), but honestly, I do get annoyed when something is called wrong in general.

I get even more annoyed that when the referee is given a second opinion (sometimes third if touch judge comes to chat), and the bonus of actual slo mo replay footage and they still somehow can't see what I feel is obvious.

I also think that there is too much referee ego. I mean, I love the respect for a ref element of rugby - but too many refs just aren't interested in hearing a captains interpretation of the same thing on a big screen.

Just to show I'm not biased, I will give an example of a harsh call against Stormers.
Mike Lowry, if you are going to catch a ball and immediately duck down your head to where your waist would normally be in a split second, you are likely to get tackled at 'head height'. Stop gurning about it so much.

Yes by letter of the law, it's contact with the head. But the Stormers tackler was low, and aiming for what would have been waist in the split second before Lowry dropped his height to try and duck under the tackle.

I'm all for penalties to try and encourage lower tackle, but that tackle was not a high tackle - it was a bent over low tackle of a short player, ducking his head down in a split second.

Ferris talking about a red... needs to wise up. We don't need more harsh reds in rugby, we need less. Especially if players are not willingly doing something dangerous.

Greg Jones got a fractured thumb in the game and has returned to Belfast.

The decision was clearly wrong, hopefully the refs chief admiting that will help them make better decisions in future. I blame the TMO for this though, I can see how the ref in the stadium wouldn't see it clearly on the stadium screen but the TMO was no use, actively avoiding the question, as I said before that was an extremely weird exchange almost like the TMO was doing it on purpose.

I agree with Clivemcl on the Lowry tackle think the ref got this right, and overall think he was decent up to the try/no try. The TMO on the other hand.....

The exchange from the ref to the TMO was strange and the TMO avoided his direct questions which made it more difficult for him, and he ended up just going with what the TMO said, who appeared to be bending the rules to match his orginal conclusion. I think thebref made and honest mistake while the TMO made interpreted it to suit his own conclusion rather than go though the process step by step. An honest mistake is easy to explain and you can give your process and how you reached that (wrong) conclusion, a not honest mistake is a lot more difficult to explain as thought process isnt there just a conclusion and no steps how you reached it. Its telling that Henning only had to interview the referee once, but had to interview the TMO twice, meaning he wasn't satisfied with how he explained how he reached that scrum blue decision on the 1st interview....

Reports in the Bel Tel that Jonny Bell's returning to Ravers to replace Jared Payne as defence coach.
Nice to see the return of one of the prodigals.

What do we make of that? Yes, the SA teams are finally adjusting to the URC, and are a different animal on home turf, but two losses isn’t great is it? Ulster should be annoyed, yea?
Not great to lose the two games ahead Toulouse back to back.

On a few occasions this season, McFarland has planned the bench based on moving players around when he brings somebody off and twice now I can remember, an injury throws the plan off and we are stuck with out of position players.

Putting the loss aside, I’m actually very pleased to see the SA sides putting out good performances!

I'm not too mad about it all, we really should have won the first game if the ref and TMO did their job and even that game last night was changed by a couple of incidents where I think they got it wrong.

South African teams are a different animal completely at home, only 1 win this season for any European side there so i don't think we can be too dissapointed.

Potentially if we had of played our very strongest team yesterday we could have won but given we now have 2 games v Toulouse it was probably the right call to rotate a bit and get some players more gametime while giving some a rest.

It was great to see Luke Marshall back and he had a really solid game too, if he can stay fit he will provide us with a great third option in midfield.

Disappointed in yesterday's performance. I think we struggled to make an impact in their 22 apart from the Marshall try and so we failed to convert our opportunities. I don't think the Bulls were at full stretch, but feeding off our mistakes was enough to give them the bonus point. The miss pass that was intercepted was very telegraphed, but we had to take chances to go for a losing bonus point.

Madigan did himself no favours, twice missed touch with penalties and his passing was poor. Once we went behind I don't think we were ever in it and it looked to me that the Bulls dominated the second half.

Hopefully the decision to prioritise the Toulouse game works out, we certainly need to go into that with our strongest team if we are going to progress.

Team for Toulouse

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

(1-8) Eric O’Sullivan, Rob Herring, Marty Moore, Alan O’Connor, Iain Henderson (Capt.), Marcus Rea, Nick Timoney, Duane Vermeulen.

Replacements: Brad Roberts, Andrew Warwick, Tom O’Toole, Kieran Treadwell, Jordi Murphy, Nathan Doak, Luke Marshall, Rob Lyttle.

Had anyone else completely missed (until today) that Cheslin Kolbe left Toulouse for Toulon last summer?

I suppose it's probably a good thing for Ulster but I was looking forward to seeing him at Ravenhill.

Yip. He went to Toulon last summer.
Bit disappointed moxham was chosen ahead of little.

Well Maine Man, you got what you wanted for most of the match anyway, but not in the way any of us would have wanted.

Tough game there. Obviously, It's Toulouse at home, so even with 14 they would never be a push over but still... Despite being a man up from the 10th minute, we didn't take the lead in the game until Warwick's score on 60th minute. And then after Balaoucoune scored again on the 65th minute it finally began to look comfortable but we couldn't hold off the 14 man fightback and only take a 6 point difference from a win against 14 men for 70minutes.

As I said - it's still Toulouse, and at home. But I'm a little worried by how incapable we were of creating chances given the advantage. Our backline I don't think you could say looked 'dangerous'.

Warwick scored, but only after many many failed opportunities by our forwards when we had them under pressure. Balloucoune had a good game, but an intercept is not a 'created' try, and so I don't thing our team can be accredited anything from that individual try.

Hopefully we can hold them off with home advantage, but if I'm honest, Ulster in the last wee while have not looked like a team to overly fear.

There was 3 main concerning things for me about yesterday.

The Line outs, at one point Toulouse had our lineout completely on toast, it's going to be hard to create a lot of good options if we cant get that sorted.

The rucks, our resourcing of the rucks was so poor, constantly allowing Toulouse to drive over and turn the ball over.

The last thing is how easy it was at times for them to break through the defence especially right at the end there, falling off tackles and getting over powered.

That will all need to be sorted if we are to win next week, it essentially has to be treated as though its now a one leg playoff and winner goes through.

Rob Baloucoune has signed a new deal for 3 years.

Stewart Moore signed to 2025. Ben Moxham got a concussion in Toulouse game so likely wont play this weekend

Great news on Baloucoune and Moore, not so good on Moxham. Any word on McIlroy and his return to play protocols?

No word although usually 2 weeks would be enough unless its quite a long lasting/serious one.

I hope so, just as well we are pretty well stocked with wingers. Lyttle may live down to his name (compared to many modern wingers) but I don't remember him ever letting us down in attack or defence.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/61097611
Lowry signs extension till 2025. Happy days.

Been away for a few weeks and watched the last three away games.

As to the Reid non try against Stormers let’s call it how it is

The way the Saffer TMO responded to the referee I can only conclude he was:

Dishonest, biased and a disgrace !!

Absolutely gutted by that. Ulster did play well. Arguably better than last week. Toulouse also did plenty to let us off the hook and give us chances. In some ways I can't quite fathom how we lost that.
The red card likely did not help for sure. I've plenty to say on tackles in the air and high hits. Ultimately... if the cards are designed to be a deterrant, then the suggestion is they are at worst intentional and at best avoidable.

If they are avoidable, then the player should absolutely be held accountable for causing their team to play a man down.

For me, Lowry and Herring probably should have been cards also.

Disappointed.

But as Iain Henderson rightly pointed out, it's a fairly young side. And tonight the youngsters really did shine quite well. The future is bright.

Thought we acquitted ourselves very well against possibly the top club aide in the world. Disappointed but also proud. We certainly didn't look out of place.

I thought Ulster looked great over both legs. Toulouse will consider themselves fortunate to escape.

Teams up for the Friday night game :

Ulster: Moore; Baloucoune, Hume, McCloskey, McIlroy; Lowry, Cooney; Warwick, Herring, Moore; O'Connor, Henderson (capt), Matty Rea, Murphy, Timoney.

Replacements: Roberts, O'Sullivan, Milasinovich, Carter, Reidy, Doak, Madigan, Moxham.

Munster: Haley; Earls, Farrell, de Allende, Daly; Carbery, Casey; Loughman, Barron, Archer, Kleyn, Ahern; O'Donoghue (capt), Hodnett, Kendellen.

Replacements: Buckley, J Wycherley, Ryan, Jenkins, F Wycherley, Murray, Healy, Cloete.

Should be a real test for Lowry at 10 and Moore at 15. I hope Matty R has been taking tips from his brother as the Munster back row looks formidable despite the lack of experience in Hodnett and Kendellen. I feel a win is essential, no matter if it is scrappy or by 1 point.

Awful news this morning, Pedrie Wannenburg has passed away after a car crash in USA. He was an excellent player for us, RIP and thoughts with his family who are in hospital.

neilthom7 wrote:Awful news this morning, Pedrie Wannenburg has passed away after a car crash in USA.  He was an excellent player for us, RIP and thoughts with his family who are in hospital.

Tragic news. Wannenburg was a great player for Ulster, I was very disappointed when he left. Thoughts are with his family and friends at this difficult time.

We are a couple of poor results away from a car crash of the season.
If we loose away to Edinburgh we will be 7th.
Loose to Sharks and it will probably be the first season not in top flight European competition.

If that happens I wont be renewing my season ticket.
Games have reduced from 14 to 11 in recent years.
Next year we would have 2 Challange Cup games, home games against Dragons and Zebre.
Thats 4 weak fixtures, leaving 7 top flight games.
With a price increase almost certainly on the way I'll just select a handful of games instead

It has been relatively easy to get tickets this year, even for the game v Toulouse it only sold out the day off the game.

In previous years I would have had to had tickets weeks in advance to get to an inter pro but was able to go to several this year on a spur of the moment decision the day before.

I decided to cool my jets at the time, but I remember after our bad trip to SA, there was some apologists on here playing it down.

Well - I'm going to say it. For too long Ulster have had the same attitude - the attitude of 'well, we're only Ulster - you can't expect to win them all'.

Yes, the SA teams are much stronger at home. Nobody denies that. But the best teams will win anyway. And we didn't.
In a season where we managed to do what is usually unfathomable and beat Leinster twice, we can't keep consistent enough to close out the other games.

Do we actually believe ourselves to be among the top teams in Europe, or do we we just think ourselves lucky to get the occasional big win?

Also... Lowry at 10 - I'm not sold. Not at all. Perhaps because he's just way more impactful at 15.

On that note - is Addison not meant to be back by now?

We do not have and have not had since the days of Muller, Afoa, Ferris and Wannenburg a pack that can boss a game.
We are always going to come up short.
We have the backs to make a difference in some, but not all, games.

Lets be honest winning at this level the likes of Warwick, O'Connor, Matty Rea are not good enough
Sadly on that performance I think you can add Murphy and the too often injured Moore to that list

The half backs showed no spark of imagination - going through the paces
We do not currently have a 10 good enough

We simple do not produce enough forwards of sufficient quality through our academy
THe front row looks ok - Reid, Stewart and O'Toole
but 4 to 8 what do we have - the useful Marcus Rea, the highly promising Izzy and a possible in Sheridan but not much else.
Unless we are allowed to sign, say 3 NIQs (2 for 4 to 8 and a 10)we will come up short.

Even the much vaunted Vermuelen has disappointed me a little, great over the ball but for me he doesn't seem to have 80 mins in him.

Carter is no great shakes

If I was Cooney or McCloskey I would be off and earn more cash elsewhere

Addison was supposed to be back before Easter.
Lets be honest we need to forget him.

Given the set up at Leinster and the money in their schools compared to our amateur set up and the holy grail that is the
Schools Cup (I truly hate that competition - a ball and chain around Ulster player development)
we have no hope catching up.
In addition there is private money going into Munster but no sign of it at Ulster

Re: Addison, as fantastic a player as he is, from a purely business perspective retaining him makes little sense.

Ulster have not had one performance I can think of that would suggest they can sit at the top table for anything other than fleeting moments. For the couple of losses that could and probably should have been wins there are many more that were nail-biters that could have gone the opposite way for us. When I saw the selection for friday's match I wondered at Dan's live of thought when he decided to conduct an experiment at 10 & 15 with a Munster coming to town who were desperate for a win. The whole season could come crashing to an unceremonious halt sooner than expected as a win in Edinburgh will be a tough ask and the Sharks could come to Belfast and get a win if friday night's performance is repeated.

As I said elsewhere we are staring down the end of a barrel.
Two defeats and it could easily be no European Championship next year

God we love a good crisis....

There will always be players that are not good enough, suffer too many injuries, poor team selections and as fans we will always complain. Things are no different at most other clubs. I'm not trying to play down the situation, we've gone from a position of strength to fighting to stay in contention.

My concern is that yet again when the pressure is at its highest, we do not appear to be up to it mentally.
There doesn't appear to be the small number of leaders who will say "we aren't going to lose this" and drag everyone else along. The number times that we have performed as a team, as more than the sum of the parts, has been too few. And this has been the case for a long time.

I'm not sure bringing in talent from elsewhere will necessarily work. I can't see us being able to bring in the likes of Afoa+Muller+Wannenburg+Pienaar again. The academy is going to have to be the main source of our talent moving forward, and it does appear to be producing, but the mental side, the mental strength is what is required. And that intangible takes time and perhaps adversity to develop.

I sincerely hope there is a reaction from the team when play Edinburgh and the Sharks and that these difficult times forge the desire and the steel in our up and coming players.

Our Academy is producing more now but let’s be clear there is no way anywhere need the
number players required from 4 to 8.
Not even close.
We have 5 players being talked up as backrowers a couple of years ago.
Anyone remember Dumleavy, Allison, Agnew or Hall?
The spin was Ulster had an outstanding crop just waiting in the wings.
Only McCann is with us, and he has yet to breakthrough. He will 22 next month.
Also no 10 on the horizon, forget about Humphreys.

We have only once been this close to missing out on the Heineken Cup.
We are already making cut backs, if we fail to qualify the cuts will be even deeper.

I fully realise we will not sign world class forwards like those I listed but we need more than we have.

The URC has 13 teams in it who have won a major trophy.
Of those Ulster have gone the longest since they won anything 2006.

I really do think we are at a crossroads.
We have a much tougher league with the introduction of the Saffers and
we are not getting the financial input of Munster, let alone Leinster

The Irish teams will also have to take into account that they will have a tough fixture list too going forward. As they play 2 games against each of the other Irish teams where as for example Glasgow will have 2 games each v Zebre and Treviso, really you would be looking 19 points out of those 4 games if you had them and so Irish teams will have to play harder and be more consistent to over come that for top 4 spots etc.

In regards to young forwards I will at least say we had a nice crop in the U-20's this year so thats good, how they will progress though from there is anyones guess, realistically if even 1 or 2 go on to become first teamers that would likely be the height of it.

I will however say this about our form, Ulster's fixture list of recent has hurt them too, lots of travel to South Africa then France. The 5 big physical packs in a row has hurt them and the loss by so close v Toulouse hurt them mentally. So there is at least some things there that go some way to explaining it.

However if they really want to win something they will have to learn to cope with all that kind of thing (and a refs decision screwing them out of a win too) and also get better depth as you can't really expect your first 15 to play 5 high ferocity matches in 5 weeks in 3 different countries and still be at their best.

I don't understand why the fixtures between the European Champions Cup and the other competitions have to be intermingled?

Why can there not just be a block set aside for the European Champions Cup?

Tom O'Toole handed a 3 week ban for the tackle v Toulouse, 6 weeks but reduced to 3 thanks to disciplinary record and guilty plea. His bans ends on 9th June but can be free from 2nd June should he apply for and compelte a coaching intervention course.

And yet, he will go straight back to attempting upright tackles... just like every other player.
As if, in the moment, you really are thinking about where the shoulder makes contact.
The players continue to tackle chest to chest without lowering their height.
Where the contact is made is a lottery.

The cards do not change tackle technique.

Teams have clearly decided that tackling low all the time is not a good idea.
The level of risk from high tackles is considered acceptable.

The idea that players will learn to tackle low is nonsense.
Teams have decided that it will result in more defeats than the odd player being sent off.
Nothing will change, if there was going to be change in tackling technique it would have happened by now

I actually get super mad at Ulster most of the time because they tackle high and miss most of their tackles because of it. In most of the field tackling higher is usually a disadvantage and makes it less likely you will get the person to ground (see way too many instances v Toulouse) That obviously changes when you are close to your own line.

Tackling high is poor tackle technique, when I learned to play rugby (not all that long ago although longer than I care for now lol) we were taught to tackle low, so this constant hitting high is relatively new (seems like it was accelerated by the common use of choke tackles)

Either way, players and coaches need to work on their tackle technique to avoid red cards and to help them make more tackles, if they cant do that they shouldn't be rugby players and the coaches should be fired. Its a new dawn and they have to get with the game.

If you tackle low the tackled players hands are free to offload.
Coaches have made a conscious decision, in most cases, that tacking the torso( stifling the ball) below the head and above the knee is the way to go.

I understand that the body height tackles (I do think it is safe to assume no one actually intends to go illegally high) are supposed to stop offloads and give the defence time to organise. However if the tackler is driven back in contact, as seems to happen too frequently for us in big games, I don't see this time for organising as the offside line is also pushed back.

Tackling low (if successful) forces the offload to maintain momentum from the attackers, so I think we have to accept that and re-organise the defensive scheme based on this. In decent weather it could make for a faster and more entertaining game. It could also mean more onus on speed and skills rather than bulk and power with consequent benefits in reducing the force of impacts.

It may well be a completely different game to that which we grew up with (especially for those of my age), but if things don't change the professional game will not only be crucified by claims from retired players with significant long term brain injuries, but it will also be unable to justify its future.

Good side for Edinburgh, with one exception, so no excuses.

The exception is the useless lump at TH

geoff999rugby wrote:Good side for Edinburgh, with one exception, so no excuses.

The exception is the useless lump at TH

My feeling too when I saw GM starting. Not great but at least Edinburgh are going through a front row crisis at the minute (or at least they were) so hopefully negating the useless lump.

Edit: Just saw the Edinburgh side, they are not having any crisis and have named a very strong side so it's an uphill struggle tomorrow evening.