Any word on the Academy?

[justinr73]

Sounds like a good try from Faddes too.

Silly to write the guy off when he’s been hampered by injury, yet still tops the Ulster charts for Pro 14 tries and yardage made.

[Neill_M]

Sounds like a good try from Faddes too.

Silly to write the guy off when he’s been hampered by injury, yet still tops the Ulster charts for Pro 14 tries and yardage made.

Agreed, was playing in Super Rugby, decent player. Hope rugby is not going the way of soccer (football) when one bad performance has people calling for sackings etc

[rumncoke]

Faddes hasn't performed at the top level --- an A game is not quite the same -- in many ways -- Defences are not as well organised-- and experience may be lacking.

What coaches are looking for is potential -- and the opportunity to -- to give players coming back from injury -- or those players who will be called upon if injuries occur a bit of game time at a level above AIL

[justinr73]

Insightful, as always, Rum.

[launish116]

Faddes hasn't performed at the top level --- an A game is not quite the same -- in many ways -- Defences are not as well organised-- and experience may be lacking.

Think Faddes has definitely been below par, but will come good! Has he even played 2 games in a row in the same position? As pointed out he is a top try scorer!

[UlsterNo9]

Sounds like a good try from Faddes too.

Silly to write the guy off when he’s been hampered by injury, yet still tops the Ulster charts for Pro 14 tries and yardage made.

Agreed, was playing in Super Rugby, decent player. Hope rugby is not going the way of soccer (football) when one bad performance has people calling for sackings etc

Two sensible posts this forum is going to pot

[MightyRearranger]

Silly to write the guy off when he’s been hampered by injury, yet still tops the Ulster charts for Pro 14 tries and yardage made.

Think there are a couple of different points here.

Given his super rugby pedigree I've no doubt Faddes is a much better player than we saw last year, where regardless of stats, and no doubt partly due to injury, he didn't really catch the eye. I think some of the time he was also guillty of trying to hard to impress, throwing speculative offloads when he should have held it etc. I expressed surprise at his inclusion for the Toulouse game, though it's based on what I've seen and I've no doubt it'll be based on what he's shown behind closed doors in training. To be fair to him, I actually thought he played pretty well when he came on too and would be hopeful that he'll almost be like a new signing this year.

My second thought though is with respect to his signing. He effectively took Cave's contract, and while he offer a lot more versatility I'm not sure how much we'd be losing having Cave in the squad and our back three positions being covered by the impressive youngsters we have coming through compared to Faddes. Maybe on form it will be a step up and I hope he demonstrates that to be the case, but in general I'd like Ulster to be a representative side so far as possible and unless foreign signings are going to significantly improve the team in an area of weakness I'd rather stick with what we have. Given that decision has already been made though and now he's here I hope he'll become a valuable member of the squad and make me eat my words.

[Silverstu]

Great result but from the link doesn’t seem like we made any subs in the back row or scrum half. Moral boosting win but feel there needs to be a mix in blooding some of the younger players in these games - is there much benefit in letting Allison, Finlay or even young Doak sit on the bench in an A fixture for 80 minutes?

From the photos there were subs made- look liked Callum Reid, Kane, Stewart and Alison all got on. Would be nice to get confirmation.
Hopefully some of these guys start appearing with the seniors. McCann, Rea Jr and Moore sound likely.
Hope McIlroys injury isn't serious - sounds like a hamstring tightening up.

[UlsterNo9]

We seem to be forming a strong backbone of players with a young age profile, that will be able to be kept together for a while.
I'm going to nail my colours to the mast and claim the below team is capable of knock out Euro rugby within the next 3/4 seasons.
There's talent there that there hasn't been over the last decade.

1 O'Sullivan (24)
2 Stewart (19)
3 O'Toole (22)
4 Treadwell (24)
5
6 Marcus Rea (23)
7 Cruthers (18)
8 McCann (20)
9 Doak (18)
10 Lowry (22)
11 Sexton (20)
12 Hume (22)
13 Moore (21)
14 Baloucoune (23)
15 Stockdale (24)

[Silverstu]

Yeah and we also have McIlroy for Full back/wing and possibly Reid at loosehead.Plus there is a bunch lads in the sub academy. Lock is problematic at the moment- there are 3 locks in the sub academy and I think there's a promising one still at school plus that 7s lad they are hoping to convert there. McMenemin [sp?] is in the sub academy and was training with the seniors -big lad but not sure about his talent level. Hopefully a few more will stick their hands up.

[Don_Alfonso]

Great result but from the link doesn’t seem like we made any subs in the back row or scrum half. Moral boosting win but feel there needs to be a mix in blooding some of the younger players in these games - is there much benefit in letting Allison, Finlay or even young Doak sit on the bench in an A fixture for 80 minutes?

From the photos there were subs made- look liked Callum Reid, Kane, Stewart and Alison all got on. Would be nice to get confirmation.
Hopefully some of these guys start appearing with the seniors. McCann, Rea Jr and Moore sound likely.
Hope McIlroys injury isn't serious - sounds like a hamstring tightening up.

From the 42.ie:

ULSTER A: Ethan McIlroy (Hayden Hyde ’22); Craig Gilroy, Matt Faddes, Stewart Moore, Aaron Sexton; Bill Johnston, David Shanahan; Kyle McCall (Callum Reid ‘HT), Adam McBurney (captain) (Tom Stewart ’75), Gareth Milasinovich (yellow card ’50) (Ross Kane ’60); David O’Connor, Kieran Treadwell; David McCann, Marcus Rea (Ross Kane ’52 to ’60), Greg Jones.

Replacements: Azur Allison, Reuben Crothers, Lewis Finlay, Bruce Houston, Conor Rankin, Nathan Doak.

So Callum Reid got a half, Kane got half an hour, but Allison didn't get on, apparently.

[kingofthehill]

Exciting team this weekend against Benetton

[Don_Alfonso]

I saw David McCann being bigged up in the press.

[MightyRearranger]

I'll take a guess at something like:
1. EOS
2. Herring
3. TOT
4. Treadwell
5. Carter
6. McCann
7. Nordi
8. Timoney
9. Cooney
10. Lowry
11. Sexton/McIlroy
12. Madigan
13. Moore
14. Lyttle
15. Faddes

I'd expect a few of the people who've been started the last three games to get another week off, though both Cooney and Jordi looked like they could do with a bit of game time. If we were to pick a lot of youngsters in the backline I think it'd also be good to have an experienced head, be it Madigan (not sure when he last played 12, or Ludik with Faddes moving into the centres.

[therealspratt]

I'd really hope that if McGrath is getting a week off then they give Reid a shot from the bench ahead of McCall.