Positives & Negatives: Ulster V Glasgee

[againstthehead]

Positives
- start the season with a win: can't beat it
- set piece largely outstanding. AK with the darts and big Dan T reigning supreme in the air. Best lineout performance that I've seen from an ulster side for a long time - who is the forward's coach?
- scrum solid: no afoa, best, court, fitzy..... decent performance from the tight 5
- henry led by example. Super try and generally ran hard and straight when required.
- some lovely off-loads attempted to break the defence - we seemed to be trying to pop the ball just prior to the tackle. Didn't quite come off tonight but this is the way to break modern defences. Right idea, work on the execution
- retained posession reasonably well at times and pressuring the glasgow ruck, Decent workrate.
- Marshall started like a train but had a few wayward kicks in the second 40. Just needs a little composure but a good outing. Some crackin wee tackles from the wee man.
- Whitten had a decent outing on the wing - took some catches and ran hard. Not bad for out of position.
- spence a wee livewire as usual. Looks positive for the season ahead
- tuohy was mentioned above but he had a big game around the park IMHO. carried some great ball and looked dyanamic - exactly what we need. Paddy Mac looked good in the 1st 40 and big Pedrie had one of his better games IMHO.

Negatives
- our error count kept glasgow in the ball game. Time after time we got in excellent positions only to give away posession cheaply or give away a penalty. Sometimes you need to be patient and take the contact and go through the phases.
- humph was hot and cold. Some good place kicking but then missed the one to go 10 points up and ease the pressure. His distribution was very poor - way off the mark at times and could have been intercepted. Good to have the game under his belt and hopefully he'll move on from here.
- thought we could have ran a bit more ball back at them from their kicks in the 1st 40 in particular. Lacked a bit of potency - hopefully Payne will help us out in that department.
- only 1 sub used: not much confidence in the bench. Brady was a good call and it was hard to bring on diack as the backrow were all decent enough. Maybe could have switched henry to 7. McComb could have got an outing when we went 14 up but again the engine room was in good shape. Any news on Barker and Fitzy?

Overall, a half decent performance and a very good result. A nice start to the season that sets us up well for a trip to Italy. The lads look well conditioned and well organised at the set-piece. Looks good.

[King Ding]

Positives:
Off to a winning start
The forwards in general were good but i thought everyone in the backrow played well, especially Faloon who w=made himself a nuisance to the opposition all night
Tuohys return, carried ball well and i cant wait to see him back in his stride and giving more players the Bosch treatment
Spence- looked dangerous all night and its good to see someone busting a gut to chase a restart, winning the ball for us many times.
Whitten on the wing, dealt with anything that came his way and had seymour in his pocket all night, only got caught out positionally once when he wandered in to defend at outside centre. Caught everything and ran hard, could have had a try too if caves pass wasn't to his head.
Paul Marshall. licely round the base and a well taken try

Negatives:
Paul Marshall: i can remember very few of his kicks in the second half that didn't go out on the full and his 5/6 step routine takes away space from the outside backs thats already pretty limited thanks to a ref who doesn't look for offside.
Wannenburg not giving the ball to spence sooner when he had a brake, cost us a try.
Lack of subs, only having 1 sub at the 70 minute mark is ridiculous, Diack should have been on at 50/60 as wannenburg tired. Some of the backs subs should have seen some action too, porter on for marshall and Nelson on for D'arcy. Thank feck glasgow were so poor they didn't punish the fact our team had no fresh legs.
Lack of Back play, the team have had the whole summer to work on patterns, yet once the first phase is done we kept doing the same thing, big ball carrier up the middle, making us no ground. The fact our wingers only ever got the ball from kicks or broken play is also a worry, a possible consequence nof the spence/cave partnership.

Since its the first game of the season the mistakes and lack of inventiveness can be forgiven but still plenty to work to do.

[OneMore]

I think Wannenburg was the stand-out player for us tonight. He was brilliant. Carried well, hit well and got involved all over the place.

Did anyone hear who was awarded man of the match?

The use of subs issue certainly popped up again. Thought the pack looked to be flagging pretty badly towards the end. I just can't figure out why the subs weren't better used.

Hey, great start. Onwards and upwards.

SUFTU

[Snipe Watson]

With the exception of P3 the forwards lacked dynamism with the ball. too many forwards taking the ball static. Everything else was OK for a first match and a wet second half. Small Paul does so many good things, but his No.9 basics are not good enough and as a result iHumph looked poor at times.

[Big-al]

Outside of 10 our backs can't pass.

Spence was very disappointing and clearly didn't enjoy the 12 position. Luke Marshall should start at 12 next week

[Snipe Watson]

Fair point al

[King Ding]

Outside of 10 our backs can't pass.

Spence was very disappointing and clearly didn't enjoy the 12 position. Luke Marshall should start at 12 next week

It comes down to the cave/spence debate, i personally dont think they can play together and would like to see a marshall/spence combination, favouring spence purely for his work rate and dynamism. As i said before the wingers get no ball passed to them and we can't expect humphreys to do all the work.
Think your being a bit harsh al saying spence was disappointing.

[Rooster]

Bit of realism needed,
Weegies usually give us a lot of trouble, tonight was scrappy but we sent them home with nothing bar a few sore looking players.
Big positive is Jerry Cronin in the front row, what a change from his first few outings, looks like he has lost a bit of gut and got a heck of a lot fitter, fair play to him and the fitness guys.

[King Ding]

Bit of realism needed,
Weegies usually give us a lot of trouble, tonight was scrappy but we sent them home with nothing bar a few sore looking players.
Big positive is Jerry Cronin in the front row, what a change from his first few outings, looks like he has lost a bit of gut and got a heck of a lot fitter, fair play to him and the fitness guys.

well said rooster, he will be a very good player to have in the squad. I believe he came into the ulster scene last year after a pretty long term injury so that also explains his fitness back then and it looks like a full pre season has done him the world of good

[bootlaced]

Did anyone hear who was awarded man of the match?

Chris Henry

[Rooster]

Some peeps here are drunk on the we are brill beer.............................poor Glasgow side, average performance, ATH must have been smokin some weed

Actually agree YM, should have wiped them out and be sitting with 5 points tonight instead of 4, lot of good stuff mixed with some terrible handling errors that a decent side would have punished us.
Butchered numerous scores, quite possibly up to 4 more trys.
Will need to play better next week and really up it for the Cardiff match as they wiped the floor with Embra tonight.

[fuzzylogic]

Positives

We are 1 from 1 so far.

P3 had a stormer compared to what I can remember of him from last season.

Chris Henry is fast turning into one of the guys Ulster cant and shouldnt want to play without.

Big Dan Touhy is a big big player and he certainly stepped up to the mark as a ball carrier tonight. There is big competition for a place in the front and second row this season and its going to be good to watch.

Ulster are building up a very useful, big squad with depth in all positions. Gone are the days of a 1st XV needing to be flogged to death and its great to see, the management have bought in well and the academy system is really starting to pay off.


Negatives

Couldnt find that 4th try for the BP. We played a poor Glasgow side, but we were fairly average ourselves.

Small Paul threw a couple of wayward passes and his service to IH was sloppy.

BMcL's use of the bench was worrying. Taking tips from comical Eddie perhaps.

Didnt rate Spence's performance to highly tonight, however im not sure if thats down to him just having a bad night or if maybe ive just bought into the over-hype some of the posters on here have given him (I know its not the popular opinion on here, but I really dont see him as anything more than a Kevin Maggs, battering ram type centre. Its PW/LM and Cave in the middle for me)

The weather wasnt great

[rumncoke]

The ref made it hard
Glasgow made it hard
and Ulster made it hard
for themselves.

Usual flat backline with passes begging the intercept also some silly lobs
Restarts were hopeless far to long giving nobody an opportunity to harry the receiver.
Usual charge down

until the last try the game was anyones which basically was the reason for no subs other than Brady. As both Henry and 3P were playing well like wise Falloon and the backrow hadn't taken any knocks why bring on Diack who would primarily be a sub for 3p or Henry and not Falloon similiarly Diack could be seen as a defensive tackling backrow rather than a ball carrier .

Glasgow looked toothless in the second half and the only way Ulster could have lost would have been GLasgow exploiting an Ulster mistake.

[BaggyTrousers]

Nothing in depth from me.

Positive: win and no BP for Glasgie
Thought our kicking was excellent in the 1st half, all the high balls were well placed & allowed a good chase.
Spence chasing kick offs was inspired & wee Marshall's try came off the back of a great win by Nevin.

Negative: Win & no bonus point
Wee Marshall - even when he does so much so well - one great break & a try which no scrum half in the world would have done better he was so quick and threw himself into tackles but then came the second half when his kicking was an embarrassment and he became more & more laboured resulting in our game becoming truly ponderous.

My biggest disappointment was the lack of try scoring opportunities created. Glasgie are very very poor, they had no attacking intent. Why we attempted iHumph's late penalty instead of going for the corner I have no idea. Yes we were only 7 points up but Glasgie couldn't score in a brothel & in reality 7 was a 3 score lead.

Overall a bonus point lost and an OK but not nearly as good as I had hoped for performance. Still at least they didn't stumble to a crap defeat - early days.

[Jockster]

Disagree about beagle's try Baggy--It was sloppy defense from glasgow--in fact they had no defense except a prop who didn't seem to know what to do--there was no-one really covering that side. But fair play to Marshall for spotting it. His passing has improved but is still not great and his kicks are way off what he should be doing at ANY level. However, love the wee man's attitude and commitment.

Kick off's were a waste of time as they basically handed the ball to glasgow with little contention.

Faloon seems to have bulked up a bit which he needed but I believe we lack depth at 7.
Henry ran hard and straight which is good. I also saw signs that there is an understanding of P3's play in terms of support and offloads.

I humphs passing had me cringing at times as better sides would have intercepted a few of his passes. I really like the angles that cave runs as he must be a nightmare to defend against--still not sure what the best partnership is in midfield but would like to see more of L Marshall and Cave.

Great to see Tuohy coming back and Stevenson looks like he'll challenge.

Cronin is coming on well and there is little really to criiticise except a little rustiness throughout the team and the final pass which so often didn't come off.

It was a shame the subs weren't used more--I can only think McGlocks didn't want to risk anything as the match was close up to the final quarter.