BaggyTrousers wrote:Why we feel the need to play a strongish team against them at home & a much much weaker one away, beats me? Strikes me as dumb.
So the red card had no effect on the outcome, and we were facing a loss even with 15 men on the pitch? And red cards aren't so rare in rugby as to be freakish? We have picked up 3 in quick succession, when was the last Ulster red card - I honestly can't remember another one. In that you disagree not only with Chris Henry (referred to it as a blip, due to the red card) but with every bookie who made a book on the match! Ulster were massive odds-on favourites, and obviously this was after the teams were announced.BaggyTrousers wrote:This was no freak result, it was an accident waiting to happen & we learned nothing from previous close shaves.
I don't understand why you're so defensive - it's obvious and undeniable that the red card was the major factor in the outcome of the match. Whether a notional 'full-strength' side would have eked out a 14 man victory is unknowable, and largely incidental - you can't go into matches assuming that a guy will be sent off after 10 minutes.
It's also not the case that the home selection was that much stronger than the away selection - yes Besty and Henry (our 2 key players IMO) were left out, on the flip side Bowe, van der Merwe and Wilson came back in, and most of the other changes were largely neutral - e.g. Allen/Andrew, Black/Warwick, McComb/Stevenson. I have no doubt that if Best and Henry had been sent over there and broke their ankle, the keyboard warriors would have been out in force bawling about why on earth they were risked away to Zebre FFS etc etc.
