Ulster v Ospreys - Positives and Negatives

Talk about the men in white, and everything Ulster!!

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ruckover
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Ulster v Ospreys - Positives and Negatives

Post by ruckover »

NEGATIVES
- Another loss at home :banghead:
- Line-outs were absolutely abysmal
- Extremely lazy defending for their try
- No cutting edge
- Thought the ref didn't have the greatest match but he wasn't the reason why we lost
- Injuries to Pienaar and Wallace
- Our best TH prop is sitting at home in NZ when he should be playing for us :banghead:

POSITIVES
+ Very good phase count, keep recycling the ball very well
+ Defence was brilliant (bar the try)
+ Olding had a solid debut, hope he will build on that
+ Goal kicking
+ Muller and Tuohy back
+ Ricky Andrew and Mike Allen both stood out, thought they both went through a lot
+ Ali Birch did a lot of work at the breakdown. Give him games and he will be very good

Put it simply - we weren't good enough.
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rosetintedgoggles
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Re: Ulster v Ospreys - Positives and Negatives

Post by rosetintedgoggles »

+ve dislike the sheep worriers even more than I thought I did!
-ve everything else
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ColinM
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Re: Ulster v Ospreys - Positives and Negatives

Post by ColinM »

Missed too many senior players, especially after Paddy and Muller were off.


+++
Andrew and Allen- good take by Ricky and some good attempted breakouts. Good hits by Allen

Good to have L Marshall back and looked fit.

Angry Tom more than held his own at TH after the first half - well done big son, Bevington is no mug

Olding- steady in the FH role but got stuck into the extra curricular- tackling and standing in at the base well.

---
Pack lacked any go forward. Michael McComish formerly of the Campbell College in Belfast was nominated first receiver but couldnt get over the line consistently enough.

Loss of Muller, Paddy and Pienaar was too big a blow to our shape and leadership

Overall just missed one too many guys and were too rusty after 5 wks off... If we had played that team in last 2 weeks like the opposition we would have got the better of them
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mikerob
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Re: Ulster v Ospreys - Positives and Negatives

Post by mikerob »

The Ospreys played all the rugby for most of the game. Ulster only seemed to wake up when Muller and Pienaar went off.

I thought Pienaar was just going through the motions and was outshone by Fotuali'i. Marshall really did speed things up when he came on.

Lineout was awful - total systems failure - some throws to the back when nobody even jumped.
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againstthehead
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Re: Ulster v Ospreys - Positives and Negatives

Post by againstthehead »

short and sharp Ruckover and more or less on the money.

Not having Afoa frustrated the hell out of me. Missing a tonne of players due to injury and international duty, yet one of our star overseas players is off on a jolly. Bonkers. Our scrum was pathetic early on. One of our most potent weapons all season and we're left with a 4th choice tighthead who isn't even a tighthead.
- Lineout wasn't too far behind. Everytime we went downtown we messed it up but over and over again we threw it to the back.
- Backs had no depth and far too lateral.
- More key players crocked. Is this the worst season for injuries or what?
- a loss at home against a very average side. They started poorly and they we there for the taking. however, we let them get more and more into the game. As for try, it was horrific.... albeit well taken by the O's

Positives
- andrews did really well I thought
- won a fair few pens at the breakdown
- ruan's kicking from hand and ground was superb
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ruckover
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Re: Ulster v Ospreys - Positives and Negatives

Post by ruckover »

againstthehead wrote:- a loss at home against a very average side. They started poorly and they we there for the taking. however, we let them get more and more into the game. As for try, it was horrific.... albeit well taken by the O's
I'm sorry but I'll have to disagree. The Ospreys were very good, their defence was absolutely superb. Played us well. Their try definitely shouldn't have happened though.
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againstthehead
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Re: Ulster v Ospreys - Positives and Negatives

Post by againstthehead »

They made a lot of basic errors early in the game. Their linout was pish and a few handling errors. You need to capitalise on those mistakes.
But you're right, their defence did a real job on us and we never really looked like breaking them down. Not much in it really but at home you need to squeeze those wins out.
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Re: Ulster v Ospreys - Positives and Negatives

Post by TheElephantMan »

We were very rusty and we have shown we lack strenght in depth.....pityful preformance tonight.
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ruckover
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Re: Ulster v Ospreys - Positives and Negatives

Post by ruckover »

TheElephantMan wrote:We were very rusty and we have shown we lack strenght in depth.....pityful preformance tonight.
I don't think we lack strength in depth. Both props I would say so but that's it.

Pitiful performance is not right either. We had chances, we just couldn't take them. But our defence was brilliant except for their try and in attack we were good until we got to their try line. Not our worst performance this season anyway.
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Re: Ulster v Ospreys - Positives and Negatives

Post by Bangors »

Positives
Tried hard BUT came up short
Young players getting game time
Injury returnees came through unscathed

Negatives
3 weeks off showed
Injuries = PW & RP
Lineout awaful - we should STOP going long and at least secure our own ball
Scrum average - we need props playing in their proper position
Back row not nearly physical enough

Surely we can't play so badly again
Credit to the Ospreys - they were up for it,took their chance,were very physical and played the ref better than we did
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ruckover
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Re: Ulster v Ospreys - Positives and Negatives

Post by ruckover »

As far as the league is concerned...

POSITIVES
+ We still hold a 9 point lead in the table despite that loss
+ We have what would arguably be considered the easiest run in of the top 6 sides
+ We can still afford to lose twice and be top

NEGATIVES
- We now only hold a 9 point lead at the top of the table, which could become 8 if Glasgow win tomorrow
- Before tonight we had more or less a three game cushion - now it's only two
- We can't afford to rest players earlier on. If for example we were guaranteed top spot after winning the Dragons game in April, we could rest players for the Connacht and Cardiff games. The longer we don't wrap up top spot, the more games we will have to go full out for the win.

Still think we'll have top spot wrapped up by the last weekend of the season, but it would have been nice to still have a bigger cushion now.
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Re: Ulster v Ospreys - Positives and Negatives

Post by Wee Woman »

See the knives are out regarding Afoa.

We still wouldn't have won the game with him IMO.

Disappointing result but its not the end of the world, I can't see the guys performing like that next week.
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Re: Ulster v Ospreys - Positives and Negatives

Post by againstthehead »

8 or 9 points is nothing in the rabo. We play Leinster away so I'd say we're down to a 5 point lead effectively. Some nasty enough away games to come too. Tonight was a bit of a shambles really. Not playing Afoa could come back and sting our asses. I'm not blaming afoa - I'm blaming the branch. I have little doubt we would have won with him. I think our scrum would have dominant and he would have been an effective carrier and brought much needed experience. Angry Tom would have been on the loose and been free to go nuts and we'd have some prop cover on the bench to bring on.
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Re: Ulster v Ospreys - Positives and Negatives

Post by Big-al »

ruckover wrote:
TheElephantMan wrote:We were very rusty and we have shown we lack strenght in depth.....pityful preformance tonight.
I don't think we lack strength in depth. Both props I would say so but that's it.

Pitiful performance is not right either. We had chances, we just couldn't take them. But our defence was brilliant except for their try and in attack we were good until we got to their try line. Not our worst performance this season anyway.
The backrow was rubbish, as was the set piece and the attack. The only positive in that game was the defence.
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Re: Ulster v Ospreys - Positives and Negatives

Post by BaggyTrousers »

No positives

All negatives

Can't remember when I have been as disappointed by an Ulster performance. When there was the man advantage - through a disgraceful home decision by the ref, it has to be said - we kept making the wrong decisions. Shoddy shoddy performance all round.

Great Ospreys try, when Ulster fell asleep after the midget made 80 metres with a great run & chase, just about deserved to win a poor match.
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