Teflon Man

[Dave]

Not how I remember him but he was a decent athlete for a big man. He had another nickname too....

[Bart S]

[quote=TheBoat post_id=737310 time=<a href="tel:1712399454">1712399454</a> user_id=2187]
He's been absolutely brutal.

https://x.com/aCrawfordz/status/1776324 ... AA1oUZ.jpg

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk

Yes, this created a good debate on Twitter / Facebook. Didn't agree with some of his individual colour choices but the overall point is fair that there has been a lot more misses than hits.

For example, he has Baby Humph, Coetzee, Addison and Piutau as green. All of which I disagree with.

I too don’t agree with some of those choices but for different reasons…

Coetzee was good but out with long term injury and again jumped ship when rehabilitated to try for SA.

Simply too many poor choices and he is the man with 100% responsibility for all that..

He also was responsible for all coaching recruitment during that time and repeatedly we are of the opinion last few coaches haven’t been up to fixing the problem in the long term…

I heard Hugh say focus is on the 3-5 yr strategy but Bryn has been responsible for that for how long now ??

Piutau was the highest paid player in the league £500,000pa box office and great to watch but short term and went for bigger pay day at Bristol..

Addison was injury prone when he came and became a bigger sick note playing little.. other clubs look at these things.
[/quote]

Piutau was great at Wasps and Bristol and had some great games for Ulster. Human nature that after some time even guys like him will fall below high standards when surrounded by mediocrity. We gotta couple of decent seasons out of Coetzee in the end. Hardly a terrible signing other than hindsight due to his injury misfortune.
Vermeulen was past his best but look at the ulster maul in attack and defence this season.

I doubt Ruan would have been so revered playing behind the current pack - only Hendy is close to Afoa,Muller, Best, Pedrie, Henry.

This is not to excuse Bryn and in some cases you could say they weren't the most pressing need at the time but they weren't all duff players for Ulster

[Bart S]

I also think harsh on jordi Murphy. He was very good for a while and in some games was the only pack member who stood up to the opposition. He got injured after a season or so. Hardly Bryn's fault as was consistently injury free at leinster

[rumncoke]

D4 are worried ??? It was D4 who kicked the heart out of the the Province
Why would anyone want to sign for Ulster after Ruan? -- why would any schoolboy aspire to play for Ulster or professionally after PJ and SO .??

"The evil that men do lives after them"

While we blame Bryn the fact is the product he is trying to sell ie to play for Ulster, has a bad taste

[UlsterNo9]

D4 do care now, and rightly so, when we're running at a loss, we're a parasite draining the coffers.

This feeling sorry for ourselves that we don't get the rub from D4 needs to stop, the wow me feeling sorry for ones self, the chip on the shoulder, its pathetic...... the IRFU is a business, if one of the branches is not up to scratch, whilst the other is selling out Lansdowne Road yet again and making them a healthy profit where do you put your investment.

If the IRFU were a private company, they'd be looking as to whether Ulster were viable, and if consolidating with the other three provinces would be a wiser move. Ulsters main purpose is to feed players to the international team, since Henderson, only Tom Stewart has come through as a home grown international forward. There were zero Ulster players in recent 6 nation international squads. The returns aren't there and national team hasn't suffered.

Nuke us now.

Did they not care before? Not sure there are many Ulster supporters that are feeling sorry for our treatment (other than PJ and SO), they are angry that we are producing so little and those responsible have got away with it for too long.

I would say the IRFU have been indifferent up until now Lurgan Lad, we can get angry and feel sorry for ourselves or angry and do something about it. On cue Rum'n weighs in above with what I'm talking about.

The marvel of producing our own, i actually think its Munster we should be looking at as the blueprint not Leinster, similar size of province, now bringing as many youth through the club route as schools.

I'd take £1mil of playing budget for the next 5 years and hire two dozen directors of rugby on £40-50k per year and pair them with a club and school putting a programme and training in place for youth rugby. Schools outside of Belfast such as Armagh, Ballymena, Ballyclare, Wallace and Sullivan in Willie Anderson days all punch above their weight when theirs a full time professional DOR in place. Raise the standard. Produce half a dozen players worthy of a central IRFU contract and your return on investment is double, produce three and your costs are covered plus the other players coming through.

[Big-al]

D4 do care now, and rightly so, when we're running at a loss, we're a parasite draining the coffers.

This feeling sorry for ourselves that we don't get the rub from D4 needs to stop, the wow me feeling sorry for ones self, the chip on the shoulder, its pathetic...... the IRFU is a business, if one of the branches is not up to scratch, whilst the other is selling out Lansdowne Road yet again and making them a healthy profit where do you put your investment.

If the IRFU were a private company, they'd be looking as to whether Ulster were viable, and if consolidating with the other three provinces would be a wiser move. Ulsters main purpose is to feed players to the international team, since Henderson, only Tom Stewart has come through as a home grown international forward. There were zero Ulster players in recent 6 nation international squads. The returns aren't there and national team hasn't suffered.

Nuke us now.

Did they not care before? Not sure there are many Ulster supporters that are feeling sorry for our treatment (other than PJ and SO), they are angry that we are producing so little and those responsible have got away with it for too long.

I would say the IRFU have been indifferent up until now Lurgan Lad, we can get angry and feel sorry for ourselves or angry and do something about it. On cue Rum'n weighs in above with what I'm talking about.

The marvel of producing our own, i actually think its Munster we should be looking at as the blueprint not Leinster, similar size of province, now bringing as many youth through the club route as schools.

I'd take £1mil of playing budget for the next 5 years and hire two dozen directors of rugby on £40-50k per year and pair them with a club and school putting a programme and training in place for youth rugby. Schools outside of Belfast such as Armagh, Ballymena, Ballyclare, Wallace and Sullivan in Willie Anderson days all punch above their weight when theirs a full time professional DOR in place. Raise the standard. Produce half a dozen players worthy of a central IRFU contract and your return on investment is double, produce three and your costs are covered plus the other players coming through.

Almost twice the amount of people live in Ulster, than in Munster, they have GAA hotbeds also. Limerick, Clare, Tipperary and Kerry are all big Hurling and GAA football counties, and Waterford is a big football (soccer) county.

We should be producing considerably more top class players than Munster, given the population size and economic advantages of having a city with a greater population of almost 1million people.

The historic home of rugby in Munster is Limerick, which is now considered a Hurling town and which has a similar enough population to Derry/Londonderry.

All I have heard from McFarland and Cunningham over the last few seasons with regards to Ulsters development programme is excuses, excuses, excuses.

[UlsterNo9]

D4 do care now, and rightly so, when we're running at a loss, we're a parasite draining the coffers.

This feeling sorry for ourselves that we don't get the rub from D4 needs to stop, the wow me feeling sorry for ones self, the chip on the shoulder, its pathetic...... the IRFU is a business, if one of the branches is not up to scratch, whilst the other is selling out Lansdowne Road yet again and making them a healthy profit where do you put your investment.

If the IRFU were a private company, they'd be looking as to whether Ulster were viable, and if consolidating with the other three provinces would be a wiser move. Ulsters main purpose is to feed players to the international team, since Henderson, only Tom Stewart has come through as a home grown international forward. There were zero Ulster players in recent 6 nation international squads. The returns aren't there and national team hasn't suffered.

Nuke us now.

Did they not care before? Not sure there are many Ulster supporters that are feeling sorry for our treatment (other than PJ and SO), they are angry that we are producing so little and those responsible have got away with it for too long.

I would say the IRFU have been indifferent up until now Lurgan Lad, we can get angry and feel sorry for ourselves or angry and do something about it. On cue Rum'n weighs in above with what I'm talking about.

The marvel of producing our own, i actually think its Munster we should be looking at as the blueprint not Leinster, similar size of province, now bringing as many youth through the club route as schools.

I'd take £1mil of playing budget for the next 5 years and hire two dozen directors of rugby on £40-50k per year and pair them with a club and school putting a programme and training in place for youth rugby. Schools outside of Belfast such as Armagh, Ballymena, Ballyclare, Wallace and Sullivan in Willie Anderson days all punch above their weight when theirs a full time professional DOR in place. Raise the standard. Produce half a dozen players worthy of a central IRFU contract and your return on investment is double, produce three and your costs are covered plus the other players coming through.

Almost twice the amount of people live in Ulster, than in Munster, they have GAA hotbeds also. Limerick, Clare, Tipperary and Kerry are all big Hurling and GAA football counties, and Waterford is a big football (soccer) county.

We should be producing considerably more top class players than Munster, given the population size and economic advantages of having a city with a greater population of almost 1million people.

The historic home of rugby in Munster is Limerick, which is now considered a Hurling town and which has a similar enough population to Derry/Londonderry.

All I have heard from McFarland and Cunningham over the last few seasons with regards to Ulsters development programme is excuses, excuses, excuses.

Going by population can be misleading, by that theory China would win every rugby world cup, what Munster have done is started to produce professional rugby players from the GAA hotbeds you've rightly picked out. West Cork is now a productive source of players as the likes of Fineen and Josh Wycherley, Liam Coombes, John Hodnett, and Gavin Coombes have made the professional ranks. Cork city and its schools remain key production lines, but there are also Tipp men in Jake Flannery, Ben Healy, and Diarmuid Barron making it professional. We've done nothing to grow the game in non traditional areas, at the same time there is scope to get so much more out of the traditional areas.

Interesting read from 2020
https://www.the42.ie/munster-limerick-r ... 5-Apr2020/

[Jetstream]

D4 do care now, and rightly so, when we're running at a loss, we're a parasite draining the coffers.

This feeling sorry for ourselves that we don't get the rub from D4 needs to stop, the wow me feeling sorry for ones self, the chip on the shoulder, its pathetic...... the IRFU is a business, if one of the branches is not up to scratch, whilst the other is selling out Lansdowne Road yet again and making them a healthy profit where do you put your investment.

If the IRFU were a private company, they'd be looking as to whether Ulster were viable, and if consolidating with the other three provinces would be a wiser move. Ulsters main purpose is to feed players to the international team, since Henderson, only Tom Stewart has come through as a home grown international forward. There were zero Ulster players in recent 6 nation international squads. The returns aren't there and national team hasn't suffered.

Nuke us now.

Did they not care before? Not sure there are many Ulster supporters that are feeling sorry for our treatment (other than PJ and SO), they are angry that we are producing so little and those responsible have got away with it for too long.

I would say the IRFU have been indifferent up until now Lurgan Lad, we can get angry and feel sorry for ourselves or angry and do something about it. On cue Rum'n weighs in above with what I'm talking about.

The marvel of producing our own, i actually think its Munster we should be looking at as the blueprint not Leinster, similar size of province, now bringing as many youth through the club route as schools.

I'd take £1mil of playing budget for the next 5 years and hire two dozen directors of rugby on £40-50k per year and pair them with a club and school putting a programme and training in place for youth rugby. Schools outside of Belfast such as Armagh, Ballymena, Ballyclare, Wallace and Sullivan in Willie Anderson days all punch above their weight when theirs a full time professional DOR in place. Raise the standard. Produce half a dozen players worthy of a central IRFU contract and your return on investment is double, produce three and your costs are covered plus the other players coming through.

Almost twice the amount of people live in Ulster, than in Munster, they have GAA hotbeds also. Limerick, Clare, Tipperary and Kerry are all big Hurling and GAA football counties, and Waterford is a big football (soccer) county.

We should be producing considerably more top class players than Munster, given the population size and economic advantages of having a city with a greater population of almost 1million people.

The historic home of rugby in Munster is Limerick, which is now considered a Hurling town and which has a similar enough population to Derry/Londonderry.

All I have heard from McFarland and Cunningham over the last few seasons with regards to Ulsters development programme is excuses, excuses, excuses.

Going by population can be misleading, by that theory China would win every rugby world cup, what Munster have done is started to produce professional rugby players from the GAA hotbeds you've rightly picked out. West Cork is now a productive source of players as the likes of Fineen and Josh Wycherley, Liam Coombes, John Hodnett, and Gavin Coombes have made the professional ranks. Cork city and its schools remain key production lines, but there are also Tipp men in Jake Flannery, Ben Healy, and Diarmuid Barron making it professional. We've done nothing to grow the game in non traditional areas, at the same time there is scope to get so much more out of the traditional areas.

Interesting read from 2020
https://www.the42.ie/munster-limerick-r ... 5-Apr2020/

Plenty of words and strategies. In all the above analysis has anyone considered that there is also rugby played in Fermanagh, Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal. Plenty of potential there for harvesting.

[UlsterNo9]

Plenty of words and strategies. In all the above analysis has anyone considered that there is also rugby played in Fermanagh, Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal. Plenty of potential there for harvesting.

Tipperary and West Cork are your Munster equivalent of Fermanagh, Monaghan, Donegal, Cavan.....

[Dave]

D4 do care now, and rightly so, when we're running at a loss, we're a parasite draining the coffers.

This feeling sorry for ourselves that we don't get the rub from D4 needs to stop, the wow me feeling sorry for ones self, the chip on the shoulder, its pathetic...... the IRFU is a business, if one of the branches is not up to scratch, whilst the other is selling out Lansdowne Road yet again and making them a healthy profit where do you put your investment.

If the IRFU were a private company, they'd be looking as to whether Ulster were viable, and if consolidating with the other three provinces would be a wiser move. Ulsters main purpose is to feed players to the international team, since Henderson, only Tom Stewart has come through as a home grown international forward. There were zero Ulster players in recent 6 nation international squads. The returns aren't there and national team hasn't suffered.

Nuke us now.

Did they not care before? Not sure there are many Ulster supporters that are feeling sorry for our treatment (other than PJ and SO), they are angry that we are producing so little and those responsible have got away with it for too long.

I would say the IRFU have been indifferent up until now Lurgan Lad, we can get angry and feel sorry for ourselves or angry and do something about it. On cue Rum'n weighs in above with what I'm talking about.

The marvel of producing our own, i actually think its Munster we should be looking at as the blueprint not Leinster, similar size of province, now bringing as many youth through the club route as schools.

I'd take £1mil of playing budget for the next 5 years and hire two dozen directors of rugby on £40-50k per year and pair them with a club and school putting a programme and training in place for youth rugby. Schools outside of Belfast such as Armagh, Ballymena, Ballyclare, Wallace and Sullivan in Willie Anderson days all punch above their weight when theirs a full time professional DOR in place. Raise the standard. Produce half a dozen players worthy of a central IRFU contract and your return on investment is double, produce three and your costs are covered plus the other players coming through.

Almost twice the amount of people live in Ulster, than in Munster, they have GAA hotbeds also. Limerick, Clare, Tipperary and Kerry are all big Hurling and GAA football counties, and Waterford is a big football (soccer) county.

We should be producing considerably more top class players than Munster, given the population size and economic advantages of having a city with a greater population of almost 1million people.

The historic home of rugby in Munster is Limerick, which is now considered a Hurling town and which has a similar enough population to Derry/Londonderry.

All I have heard from McFarland and Cunningham over the last few seasons with regards to Ulsters development programme is excuses, excuses, excuses.

Going by population can be misleading, by that theory China would win every rugby world cup, what Munster have done is started to produce professional rugby players from the GAA hotbeds you've rightly picked out. West Cork is now a productive source of players as the likes of Fineen and Josh Wycherley, Liam Coombes, John Hodnett, and Gavin Coombes have made the professional ranks. Cork city and its schools remain key production lines, but there are also Tipp men in Jake Flannery, Ben Healy, and Diarmuid Barron making it professional. We've done nothing to grow the game in non traditional areas, at the same time there is scope to get so much more out of the traditional areas.

Interesting read from 2020
https://www.the42.ie/munster-limerick-r ... 5-Apr2020/

Perhaps we should employ the Chinese policy of national service. Everyone plays one year for Ulster.

[UlsterAreBrill]

It’s also not true that we are producing no players. The majority of our pack is now home grown, or at least a respectable pack could be put out with a good home grown contingent.

Warwick, Stewart, O’Toole, Hendo, Sheridan, Rea Jr, McCann, Rea Sr

Granted there are some problems there, primarily at 1 and 8, but you could easily fill those positions, and others, with guys who aren’t Ulster born but we’ve taken a chance on and have/could become very good players, e.g Timoney, Treadwell, Al, Izzy

The gripe seems to be that none are represented at international level which is a bit of a moot point. Being ‘top class’ doesn’t guarantee international selection, especially given the depth the national side currently has in the pack. Likewise, just because they aren’t getting capped, doesn’t mean they aren’t top class.

If the likes of McCann, Stu, O’Toole, Timoney were going to represent another country, you can guarantee they would be capped by now multiple times over.

TLDR; it’s a myth we’re not producing ‘top class’ players.

[Big-al]

Warwick cannot be described as a problem, he’s not international class, but he has never been found wanting or lacking in effort.

[solidarity]

Perhaps we should employ the Chinese policy of national service. Everyone plays one year for Ulster.

Fabulous idea.

[Bart S]

It’s also not true that we are producing no players. The majority of our pack is now home grown, or at least a respectable pack could be put out with a good home grown contingent.

Warwick, Stewart, O’Toole, Hendo, Sheridan, Rea Jr, McCann, Rea Sr

Granted there are some problems there, primarily at 1 and 8, but you could easily fill those positions, and others, with guys who aren’t Ulster born but we’ve taken a chance on and have/could become very good players, e.g Timoney, Treadwell, Al, Izzy

The gripe seems to be that none are represented at international level which is a bit of a moot point. Being ‘top class’ doesn’t guarantee international selection, especially given the depth the national side currently has in the pack. Likewise, just because they aren’t getting capped, doesn’t mean they aren’t top class.

If the likes of McCann, Stu, O’Toole, Timoney were going to represent another country, you can guarantee they would be capped by now multiple times over.

TLDR; it’s a myth we’re not producing ‘top class’ players.

The likes of Stu , Hendy and Herring are top class players who as you say, aren't getting international caps because of the high standards across the board in Ireland. Conversely TOT is in the squads but yet to show he is a top class prop. But the likes of Al O'connor and Matty Rea wouldn't get into any other side.

We have a lot of home grown players because the irfu policy is forcing that. Some are just filling shirts though.

1 newly capped home-grown forward since Hendy in 2012 tells its own tale.

We're either not producing or not managing , which may explain why the backline has got worse when with the age profile it should have been the opposite.

Have hopes for Sheridan and McCann though plus Stewart hopefully.

[CIMANFOREVER]

Al, True- international class is a red herring imo. I'm only interested in what they bring to UR and if they're EPCR standard.

Warwick is an old school prop- IE He can scrummage, but is limited in open field contributions, bar maul, ruck and narrow defensive work, and the occasional short carry. We drool over French props who do more or less the same but with a 5 stone advantage. All teams need Yeoman like AW and he's earned his corn. Luckily for us, his face doesn't fit the modern idea of a turbo prop, many of whom can't really scrummage, so he'll never trouble the Ireland squad. Yet he's stood up to some of the World's best tightheads in the past 3 weeks without a backwards step. What else do we want? And it isn't costing us £650k pa.
Conversely, I believe we may have ( unwittingly in UR terms) unearthed a real gem in Wilson.
Given the back row talent we have seemingly in the pipeline, Rea snr really does sit in the Jones category, and is one of life's wonders in terms of getting a lucky break.
Finally, my issue is twofold-
1. UR seems to stall development of talent when it reaches U20 level and the few years thereafter- talent we can't afford to squander.
2. The seeming lack of a pathway and develop from outside the non traditional paths ways and same 6-7 grammar schools. My old school was the only non grammar to win the schools cup and constantly fed players up to Ulster standard into senior rugby. This pipeline and others like it has withered on the vine. Ditto the border counties, or West of the Bann as has been said. None exploited whereas Munster and Connacht can't afford to ignore them . The idea to play a pre season at Cavan GAA HQ is one of the few bright ideas UR has had recently- I wonder is there any follow through? My impression is that UR believes the above 6-7 schools are their only focus- they seem unwilling to invest time elsewhere, hence when will we see another Goodall, Anderson etc?

So, we're not producing enough volume of talent or intermittently, and then squandering the precious resources by poor development pathways