Crisis or chronic illness??

[HammerTime]

When I read about us being labelled as bottlers it implies we are a talented team that on the big stage doesn't perform. Perhaps we simply aren't as good as some think we are. If we are going to rely on Leinster cast offs and a quality NIQ here or there we are never going to win anything.

There's nothing wrong with the quality of the players. McCloskey deserves to be talked about in the same sentence as Bundee or Henshaw. Hume last season was better than Ringrose by a long shot. Lowry was good enough last year to be considered genuine competition for Keenan (who is now widely regarded as one of the world's best FBs). The only second row in Ireland that's definitely better than Henderson is Jenkins (and when Henderson is on form you wouldn't even concede that). Last season, Baloucoune was one of the most exciting wings in Ireland. Moore is one of the best THs in Ireland. Our hookers are all excellent and are in squad terms as good as any other team bar Leinster (still arguable though - I'd take our second and third choices over theirs). Until recently Stockdale was on a trajectory towards being one of the best Irish wingers ever. Even Doak who has been so awful recently (come back Shanners all is forgiven) looked like he had the potential for greatness until recently.

The quality of players is there, we just aren't getting anything out of them. That's a coaching issue.

completely agree.. I've seen some baby-with-the-bathwater stuff in the reaction, reading things like "Timoney / Lowry / Hume / Herring / AOC etc etc are just rubbish..." er, no they ain't, if they were then getting humped by a strong side wouldn't be a big deal. We have a very good squad, not the depth of Leinster or the big French sides but who else does??

We're playing with essentially the same squad of players as last year, and we conceded more than 35 points once all last season, this season we're currently doing it every other match. Our attack is blunt and predictable against any decent side. We have not addressed the glaring problems we have with killing off teams when we are in a position to do so, or launch a fightback when the chips are down (StandUp makes a good point - if you're coaching a side playing against Ulster, no matter what happens you'll be telling them "these guys are mentally weak, keep plugging away and they'll collapse...") Our recruitment hasn't been great - messing about on the periphery of the squad, and I don't know if I'm alone to think this but I'm not that convinced by the DV signing, he's doing ok for us this year, but a big step down from Coetzee IMO. All of these are coaching / management issues.

It feels a little like we've been coasting this season, on the assumption that things will sort themselves out when push comes to shove.. Dan is right that he has credit in the bank, but I'd say he's also smart enough to know that in professional sports, any amount of credit gets burnt through pretty quickly if things turn sour. If we go zero from 4 in Europe, which is a live possibility, and end up mid-table in the league, he'll be under pressure to fix things quickly.

La Rochelle is suddenly a massive game - a win would settle the nerves, another mauling will leave us in a bad place..

This is more or less how I feel about it. I wouldn't even say that La Rochelle is a 'must win' game, so much as Ulster need to put in a good performance. The last 120 minutes of rugby Ulster have put out have been absolutely horrific, I've no inside line on the happenings around the squad, but given where Ulster were when BMcF took over, he deserves some time to try and turn it around.

At the game on Sunday, I was trying to remember what the last time there was a performance like that. Though there might have been one or two since, the first place my head went was the Ulster Team under Mark McCall after things started to fall apart. Hopefully we don't follow a similar trajectory now, at the time some of the abuse he got was utterly ridiculous. Now he's one of the most highly regarded coaches in the game.

With respect to Cave, he's always struck me as fairly sharp and his comments are often measured. He played through that era, is likely still in contact with a lot of the squad and almost certainly has a better insight than most of the people on here in terms of what it's like from inside the squad, so would tend to listen to him. Much as the performance on Sunday was utterly abject, some of the hero to zero reaction is also ridiculous. Last year in particular, there was upset on here when some of the squad weren't getting the recognition with Ireland we thought they deserved, and now they're apparently all over-rated and not good enough...

Let's not kid ourselves there are one or two who (imo) are certainly overrated (Doak, Timoney), a few that even a kid could see that aren't good enough (Matty Rea, Warwick, O'Connor, Carter, O'Sullivan, Burns and more) and quite a few who are out of form compared to last year (Baloucoune, Lowry, Hume, McIlroy, DV). Bell seems to be a massive downgrade as well. Not all doom and gloom McLoskey, Cooney, Herring and Stewart can all hold their heads high this year. Compared to the rest anyway.

[MightyRearranger]

I think both Doak and Timoney are out of sorts at the minute, but it's far too early to write Doak off and over the last few years Timoney has been one of our most consistent players. In terms of you're 'not good enough' list, Carter has started to play better recently but is for my money the most questionable of our recent NIQs. I doubt any of the rest of the list are going to be nailed on Irish internationals, but most of them have been solid players for us and the sort of player I'm glad we've got in the squad.

[thecrouch]

I think both Doak and Timoney are out of sorts at the minute, but it's far too early to write Doak off and over the last few years Timoney has been one of our most consistent players. In terms of you're 'not good enough' list, Carter has started to play better recently but is for my money the most questionable of our recent NIQs. I doubt any of the rest of the list are going to be nailed on Irish internationals, but most of them have been solid players for us and the sort of player I'm glad we've got in the squad.

Doak is only 20, he gets a pass. Conor Murray hadn't yet played senior rugby for Munster at his age.

Carter is a waste of money IMO. NIQs should bring something you can't get from your IQ players, and we have enough homegrown soft forwards who can't carry without having to import another one.

[StandUp]

It’s certainly not inconceivable that we’ll be sitting on zero points from three in Europe but we’ll be doing well ie really badly to be playing too many dead rubbers in the league given we’ve six wins from eight and seven bonus points.

Love it how a bad defeat brings a couple of posters out of the woodwork though.

Almost as if they’re pleased to see us lose….

I suppose there could be a plucky defeat to look forward to.

At this stage I'd probably be pretty pleased with plucky defeat v La Rochelle. I fear we won't get even that. Soon we will be like the NI soccer fans - reduced to cheering rapturously when the team does something mediocre - like choosing which colour of crayon to eat with their latte.

[kingofthehill]

Posted on Twitter by Overthehillprop

Have been talking about Ulsters poor discipline for a while now. Didn't realize it was this bad until I looked back at the stats.
v Zebre 13 pens 1 yellow
v Munster 13 pens 2 yellows
v Leinster 9 pens 2 yellows
v Sale 16 pens 1 yellow + Warwick
Avg per game is 13 pens 1.5 cards

Would like to see miss tackles and line breaks. Comparing all to last season under Payne.


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[Jackie Brown]

Hard to believe Burns is still our no.1 outhalf. The fact we've found literally no one else either IQd or through our youth systems says a lot. He isn't the only one, Matthew Rea and Ben Moxham are also still being rolled out, but at least they aren't starters

We'll win nothing with Burns.

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[Big-al]

Hard to believe Burns is still our no.1 outhalf. The fact we've found literally no one else either IQd or through our youth systems says a lot. He isn't the only one, Matthew Rea and Ben Moxham are also still being rolled out, but at least they aren't starters

We'll win nothing with Burns.

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It is my belief that a lot of Ulsters mental fragility in big games is down to our 1st choice outhalf. For too long he has bottled it, he doesn’t take ‘ownership’ of games in the manner all top 10’s should do, he struggles for ideas when McCloskey can’t get him on the front foot and is prone to too many errors (intercepts, poor kicks etc).

My biggest worry is that McFarland rates him highly, he said in an ulster rugby interview last week that he considers Billy burns to be the smartest player he has ever worked with!!!!!!

That opinion will continues to be his downfall. As will Cunninghams obsession with signing rejects from the Leinster academy year after year.

On Cunningham, Most/all of his signings last summer have been nonexistent this season.

What is the point on signing them? The prop from wasps can’t even get ahead of Milanovich, FFS. The scrum half from Australia is now behind shanahan, and was absolute muck vs Zebre a couple of weeks ago, the open side is by all accounts tiny, wouldn’t some of the underage players from the Irish u20 be more worthy of being 3rd choice?

The big lock from France and Hooker from Munster have been barely seen also. Ulster did not need to sign a 4th choice hooker when only Herring is a full time international and McCormick played well for the Irish u20’s last season.

[StandUp]

Posted on Twitter by Overthehillprop

Have been talking about Ulsters poor discipline for a while now. Didn't realize it was this bad until I looked back at the stats.
v Zebre 13 pens 1 yellow
v Munster 13 pens 2 yellows
v Leinster 9 pens 2 yellows
v Sale 16 pens 1 yellow + Warwick
Avg per game is 13 pens 1.5 cards

Would like to see miss tackles and line breaks. Comparing all to last season under Payne.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Gibbes fcuked us twice. Cnut.

[The Virginian]

For me it's about leadership, Once Cooney and Hendo aren't on the pitch there doesn't seem to be anyone stepping up , 2nd level leaders need to be developed through the squad so that they don't turn into headless chickens in the absence of the front line leaders

[kingofthehill]

For me it's about leadership, Once Cooney and Hendo aren't on the pitch there doesn't seem to be anyone stepping up , 2nd level leaders need to be developed through the squad so that they don't turn into headless chickens in the absence of the front line leaders

Hendy barely plays for ulster. Didn’t realise just how important Cooney is to Ulster.


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[horslips]

This thread got me to wonder about the exact management structure of UR, to whom does DMF answer? There appears to be a Professional Game Management commitee, PGM. Can anyone confirm that this is listed on the UR website as;

Management Committee

Chairman P Terrington, President G Leslie, P Gregg, D Gardiner, M Boyd, G Irwin, CW Watson, S Black, J McKibbin, E Graham, J Petrie.

If the above is the board supervising the pro game then a cursory look at the CV's of a number of the members would suggest that they should be capable of executive managent of a major enterprise. It is hardly likely that they arrived in their current professional roles without being able to deliver a high level of performance, setting KPI's and targets, making changes and tough calls to keep their respective businesses on target. Now I know the argument will be made that pro sport is different to most businesses but I would argue that the same core skills, principles and practices still apply.
In that case it seems astounding that year after year we never see UR building and getting stronger, certainly not with regard to silverware. More startling would appear to be the continued trend to sign, or more specifically allowing signing to continue, of dud after dud. If i repeatedly fecked up repeatedly in the same manner it wouldn't be long before changes were made by the MD.

Any answers people

[kingofthehill]

This thread got me to wonder about the exact management structure of UR, to whom does DMF answer? There appears to be a Professional Game Management commitee, PGM. Can anyone confirm that this is listed on the UR website as;

Management Committee

Chairman P Terrington, President G Leslie, P Gregg, D Gardiner, M Boyd, G Irwin, CW Watson, S Black, J McKibbin, E Graham, J Petrie.

If the above is the board supervising the pro game then a cursory look at the CV's of a number of the members would suggest that they should be capable of executive managent of a major enterprise. It is hardly likely that they arrived in their current professional roles without being able to deliver a high level of performance, setting KPI's and targets, making changes and tough calls to keep their respective businesses on target. Now I know the argument will be made that pro sport is different to most businesses but I would argue that the same core skills, principles and practices still apply.
In that case it seems astounding that year after year we never see UR building and getting stronger, certainly not with regard to silverware. More startling would appear to be the continued trend to sign, or more specifically allowing signing to continue, of dud after dud. If i repeatedly fecked up repeatedly in the same manner it wouldn't be long before changes were made by the MD.

Any answers people

Good point.

Would love to see the CVsfor all those people on the board. Bound to be someone who could enlighten on each person.


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[horslips]

PWC, Profast, Moy Park, Progressive BS amongst some of the companies they work for

Google name +ulster rugby will find most of them

[Columbo]

When I read about us being labelled as bottlers it implies we are a talented team that on the big stage doesn't perform. Perhaps we simply aren't as good as some think we are. If we are going to rely on Leinster cast offs and a quality NIQ here or there we are never going to win anything.

There's nothing wrong with the quality of the players. McCloskey deserves to be talked about in the same sentence as Bundee or Henshaw. Hume last season was better than Ringrose by a long shot. Lowry was good enough last year to be considered genuine competition for Keenan (who is now widely regarded as one of the world's best FBs). The only second row in Ireland that's definitely better than Henderson is Jenkins (and when Henderson is on form you wouldn't even concede that). Last season, Baloucoune was one of the most exciting wings in Ireland. Moore is one of the best THs in Ireland. Our hookers are all excellent and are in squad terms as good as any other team bar Leinster (still arguable though - I'd take our second and third choices over theirs). Until recently Stockdale was on a trajectory towards being one of the best Irish wingers ever. Even Doak who has been so awful recently (come back Shanners all is forgiven) looked like he had the potential for greatness until recently.

The quality of players is there, we just aren't getting anything out of them. That's a coaching issue.

completely agree.. I've seen some baby-with-the-bathwater stuff in the reaction, reading things like "Timoney / Lowry / Hume / Herring / AOC etc etc are just rubbish..." er, no they ain't, if they were then getting humped by a strong side wouldn't be a big deal. We have a very good squad, not the depth of Leinster or the big French sides but who else does??

We're playing with essentially the same squad of players as last year, and we conceded more than 35 points once all last season, this season we're currently doing it every other match. Our attack is blunt and predictable against any decent side. We have not addressed the glaring problems we have with killing off teams when we are in a position to do so, or launch a fightback when the chips are down (StandUp makes a good point - if you're coaching a side playing against Ulster, no matter what happens you'll be telling them "these guys are mentally weak, keep plugging away and they'll collapse...") Our recruitment hasn't been great - messing about on the periphery of the squad, and I don't know if I'm alone to think this but I'm not that convinced by the DV signing, he's doing ok for us this year, but a big step down from Coetzee IMO. All of these are coaching / management issues.

It feels a little like we've been coasting this season, on the assumption that things will sort themselves out when push comes to shove.. Dan is right that he has credit in the bank, but I'd say he's also smart enough to know that in professional sports, any amount of credit gets burnt through pretty quickly if things turn sour. If we go zero from 4 in Europe, which is a live possibility, and end up mid-table in the league, he'll be under pressure to fix things quickly.

La Rochelle is suddenly a massive game - a win would settle the nerves, another mauling will leave us in a bad place..

This is more or less how I feel about it. I wouldn't even say that La Rochelle is a 'must win' game, so much as Ulster need to put in a good performance. The last 120 minutes of rugby Ulster have put out have been absolutely horrific, I've no inside line on the happenings around the squad, but given where Ulster were when BMcF took over, he deserves some time to try and turn it around.

At the game on Sunday, I was trying to remember what the last time there was a performance like that. Though there might have been one or two since, the first place my head went was the Ulster Team under Mark McCall after things started to fall apart. Hopefully we don't follow a similar trajectory now, at the time some of the abuse he got was utterly ridiculous. Now he's one of the most highly regarded coaches in the game.

With respect to Cave, he's always struck me as fairly sharp and his comments are often measured. He played through that era, is likely still in contact with a lot of the squad and almost certainly has a better insight than most of the people on here in terms of what it's like from inside the squad, so would tend to listen to him. Much as the performance on Sunday was utterly abject, some of the hero to zero reaction is also ridiculous. Last year in particular, there was upset on here when some of the squad weren't getting the recognition with Ireland we thought they deserved, and now they're apparently all over-rated and not good enough...

When I read about us being labelled as bottlers it implies we are a talented team that on the big stage doesn't perform. Perhaps we simply aren't as good as some think we are. If we are going to rely on Leinster cast offs and a quality NIQ here or there we are never going to win anything.

There's nothing wrong with the quality of the players. McCloskey deserves to be talked about in the same sentence as Bundee or Henshaw. Hume last season was better than Ringrose by a long shot. Lowry was good enough last year to be considered genuine competition for Keenan (who is now widely regarded as one of the world's best FBs). The only second row in Ireland that's definitely better than Henderson is Jenkins (and when Henderson is on form you wouldn't even concede that). Last season, Baloucoune was one of the most exciting wings in Ireland. Moore is one of the best THs in Ireland. Our hookers are all excellent and are in squad terms as good as any other team bar Leinster (still arguable though - I'd take our second and third choices over theirs). Until recently Stockdale was on a trajectory towards being one of the best Irish wingers ever. Even Doak who has been so awful recently (come back Shanners all is forgiven) looked like he had the potential for greatness until recently.

The quality of players is there, we just aren't getting anything out of them. That's a coaching issue.

completely agree.. I've seen some baby-with-the-bathwater stuff in the reaction, reading things like "Timoney / Lowry / Hume / Herring / AOC etc etc are just rubbish..." er, no they ain't, if they were then getting humped by a strong side wouldn't be a big deal. We have a very good squad, not the depth of Leinster or the big French sides but who else does??

We're playing with essentially the same squad of players as last year, and we conceded more than 35 points once all last season, this season we're currently doing it every other match. Our attack is blunt and predictable against any decent side. We have not addressed the glaring problems we have with killing off teams when we are in a position to do so, or launch a fightback when the chips are down (StandUp makes a good point - if you're coaching a side playing against Ulster, no matter what happens you'll be telling them "these guys are mentally weak, keep plugging away and they'll collapse...") Our recruitment hasn't been great - messing about on the periphery of the squad, and I don't know if I'm alone to think this but I'm not that convinced by the DV signing, he's doing ok for us this year, but a big step down from Coetzee IMO. All of these are coaching / management issues.

It feels a little like we've been coasting this season, on the assumption that things will sort themselves out when push comes to shove.. Dan is right that he has credit in the bank, but I'd say he's also smart enough to know that in professional sports, any amount of credit gets burnt through pretty quickly if things turn sour. If we go zero from 4 in Europe, which is a live possibility, and end up mid-table in the league, he'll be under pressure to fix things quickly.

La Rochelle is suddenly a massive game - a win would settle the nerves, another mauling will leave us in a bad place..

This is more or less how I feel about it. I wouldn't even say that La Rochelle is a 'must win' game, so much as Ulster need to put in a good performance. The last 120 minutes of rugby Ulster have put out have been absolutely horrific, I've no inside line on the happenings around the squad, but given where Ulster were when BMcF took over, he deserves some time to try and turn it around.

At the game on Sunday, I was trying to remember what the last time there was a performance like that. Though there might have been one or two since, the first place my head went was the Ulster Team under Mark McCall after things started to fall apart. Hopefully we don't follow a similar trajectory now, at the time some of the abuse he got was utterly ridiculous. Now he's one of the most highly regarded coaches in the game.

With respect to Cave, he's always struck me as fairly sharp and his comments are often measured. He played through that era, is likely still in contact with a lot of the squad and almost certainly has a better insight than most of the people on here in terms of what it's like from inside the squad, so would tend to listen to him. Much as the performance on Sunday was utterly abject, some of the hero to zero reaction is also ridiculous. Last year in particular, there was upset on here when some of the squad weren't getting the recognition with Ireland we thought they deserved, and now they're apparently all over-rated and not good enough...

When I read about us being labelled as bottlers it implies we are a talented team that on the big stage doesn't perform. Perhaps we simply aren't as good as some think we are. If we are going to rely on Leinster cast offs and a quality NIQ here or there we are never going to win anything.

There's nothing wrong with the quality of the players. McCloskey deserves to be talked about in the same sentence as Bundee or Henshaw. Hume last season was better than Ringrose by a long shot. Lowry was good enough last year to be considered genuine competition for Keenan (who is now widely regarded as one of the world's best FBs). The only second row in Ireland that's definitely better than Henderson is Jenkins (and when Henderson is on form you wouldn't even concede that). Last season, Baloucoune was one of the most exciting wings in Ireland. Moore is one of the best THs in Ireland. Our hookers are all excellent and are in squad terms as good as any other team bar Leinster (still arguable though - I'd take our second and third choices over theirs). Until recently Stockdale was on a trajectory towards being one of the best Irish wingers ever. Even Doak who has been so awful recently (come back Shanners all is forgiven) looked like he had the potential for greatness until recently.

The quality of players is there, we just aren't getting anything out of them. That's a coaching issue.

completely agree.. I've seen some baby-with-the-bathwater stuff in the reaction, reading things like "Timoney / Lowry / Hume / Herring / AOC etc etc are just rubbish..." er, no they ain't, if they were then getting humped by a strong side wouldn't be a big deal. We have a very good squad, not the depth of Leinster or the big French sides but who else does??

We're playing with essentially the same squad of players as last year, and we conceded more than 35 points once all last season, this season we're currently doing it every other match. Our attack is blunt and predictable against any decent side. We have not addressed the glaring problems we have with killing off teams when we are in a position to do so, or launch a fightback when the chips are down (StandUp makes a good point - if you're coaching a side playing against Ulster, no matter what happens you'll be telling them "these guys are mentally weak, keep plugging away and they'll collapse...") Our recruitment hasn't been great - messing about on the periphery of the squad, and I don't know if I'm alone to think this but I'm not that convinced by the DV signing, he's doing ok for us this year, but a big step down from Coetzee IMO. All of these are coaching / management issues.

It feels a little like we've been coasting this season, on the assumption that things will sort themselves out when push comes to shove.. Dan is right that he has credit in the bank, but I'd say he's also smart enough to know that in professional sports, any amount of credit gets burnt through pretty quickly if things turn sour. If we go zero from 4 in Europe, which is a live possibility, and end up mid-table in the league, he'll be under pressure to fix things quickly.

La Rochelle is suddenly a massive game - a win would settle the nerves, another mauling will leave us in a bad place..

This is more or less how I feel about it. I wouldn't even say that La Rochelle is a 'must win' game, so much as Ulster need to put in a good performance. The last 120 minutes of rugby Ulster have put out have been absolutely horrific, I've no inside line on the happenings around the squad, but given where Ulster were when BMcF took over, he deserves some time to try and turn it around.

At the game on Sunday, I was trying to remember what the last time there was a performance like that. Though there might have been one or two since, the first place my head went was the Ulster Team under Mark McCall after things started to fall apart. Hopefully we don't follow a similar trajectory now, at the time some of the abuse he got was utterly ridiculous. Now he's one of the most highly regarded coaches in the game.

With respect to Cave, he's always struck me as fairly sharp and his comments are often measured. He played through that era, is likely still in contact with a lot of the squad and almost certainly has a better insight than most of the people on here in terms of what it's like from inside the squad, so would tend to listen to him. Much as the performance on Sunday was utterly abject, some of the hero to zero reaction is also ridiculous. Last year in particular, there was upset on here when some of the squad weren't getting the recognition with Ireland we thought they deserved, and now they're apparently all over-rated and not good enough...

I agree with all that, however I think that the match on Saturday is a must-win - at least if we want to stage any kind of meaningful recovery this season. The reason being that the smart money will be on a solid La Rochelle victory in the away game, so a loss on Saturday comes close to pulling the plug on the European season, and I think that for everyone, players, coaches, supporters, that is just a massive downer and miles away from early season expectations

Looking at the next block of games, Connacht (a), Munster (h) and Benetton (a) - I think the result on Saturday has a big impact on how we go into those. A win and we push the reset button and go looking to build some momentum - whereas another loss, no matter how good the performance, is another loss, and suddenly we’re on the road to Galway to trying to salvage something from the season (and they have been a bit of a bogey team recently..)

(Interesting that before the last 2 horror shows I would have been expecting us to target 3 wins, but now I look at those fixtures with quite some trepidation!!)

[CIMANFOREVER]

PWC, Profast, Moy Park, Progressive BS amongst some of the companies they work for

Google name +ulster rugby will find most of them

Gary Leslie, ex Ulster LH/ TH ( think he could play both) is very Senior in Moypark, owned by Pilgrims, one of the biggest protein companies in the world, and being a US parent company is ruthlessly ran with exacting targets and high yoy growth projections. GL is a very experienced business leader and takes no shyte. I have worked in the same business as him, where he is highly respected for his professionalism and attitude. I'd say he knows a good forward when he sees one, so no idea the influence these guys have on player recruitment beyond Bryn and Petrie.