Ulster vs Leinster at the Aviva 29/8/20

[Silverstu]

Pretty frustrating and depressing really but there was definitely improvement in the second half especially. Looking at the stats what is glaringly obvious is the turnovers conceded - consistently attacks breaking down as the ball was dropped/lost in contact/knocked on.
Hard to read too much into it- this games haven't mattered[thankfully] and the disruption of the suspended training through the week can't have helped.
Stockdale looked excellent I thought and I thought Faddes and Lyttle looked better than Gilroy last week. Hume looked much sharper as well.

We will see how we go against Edinburgh next week, thats when it counts, hopefully the injuries are of the stinger/bad knock variety and not serious. More of the second half performance and cut out the errors and we might surprise them.


I think there is a lot of overreaction here- all of a sudden we are a team of journey men -despite having reached the quarters of the Champions Cup and semi's of the pro14? We aren't match fit due to lockdown and maybe other teams have the jump on us for now but we have been on an upward curve prior to that.

I'd also disagree the academy is failing- Henderson, Marshal, Balacoune all out injured and guaranteed starters when fit, Stewart Moore yet to come through at centre. Coming through this year - 2 scrum halves - Nathan Doak/ Lewis Finlay, Tom Stewart at hooker, Alison and McCann at back row and McIlory and Aaron Sexton in the back three. And there's more below them. I'm not widely happy where we are right now but I don't buy the doom and gloom. If they can keep training settled and matches continue to go ahead we will see improvements and more of these young lads coming through this coming season.

[Lurgan Lad]

Pretty frustrating and depressing really but there was definitely improvement in the second half especially. Looking at the stats what is glaringly obvious is the turnovers conceded - consistently attacks breaking down as the ball was dropped/lost in contact/knocked on.
Hard to read too much into it- this games haven't mattered[thankfully] and the disruption of the suspended training through the week can't have helped.
Stockdale looked excellent I thought and I thought Faddes and Lyttle looked better than Gilroy last week. Hume looked much sharper as well.

We will see how we go against Edinburgh next week, thats when it counts, hopefully the injuries are of the stinger/bad knock variety and not serious. More of the second half performance and cut out the errors and we might surprise them.


I think there is a lot of overreaction here- all of a sudden we are a team of journey men -despite having reached the quarters of the Champions Cup and semi's of the pro14? We aren't match fit due to lockdown and maybe other teams have the jump on us for now but we have been on an upward curve prior to that.

I'd also disagree the academy is failing- Henderson, Marshal, Balacoune all out injured and guaranteed starters when fit, Stewart Moore yet to come through at centre. Coming through this year - 2 scrum halves - Nathan Doak/ Lewis Finlay, Tom Stewart at hooker, Alison and McCann at back row and McIlory and Aaron Sexton in the back three. And there's more below them. I'm not widely happy where we are right now but I don't buy the doom and gloom. If they can keep training settled and matches continue to go ahead we will see improvements and more of these young lads coming through this coming season.

Maybe I should change that to HAS been failing, and for a long time, minimal home grown forwards have come through while in the backs we have been decent but not great. No good replacement/adequate backup for Ruan, while quite a few decent to Ireland quality players elsewhere in the backline have come through.

[Bayern]

Hume looked decent.

[justinr73]

What I'm getting at is we need a team that has an 'Ulster' culture right through it, supplemented by quality imports. A team that are proud to play for 'their' province, and have the qualities that make so many of us proud to say we are from Ulster. What I feel we have now is simply another branch of the IRFU with little real identity.

I’ve just had a bid on a house in East Belfast accepted. Hopefully I’ll meet the standard required to be a quality import!

[Bayern]

what would a homegrown ulster side look like, with 5 high value imports:

1. Jack McGrath(Leinster)
2. Adam McBurney
3. Tom O'Toole
4. Kieran Treadwell(Exile)
5. Iain Henderson
6. Matty Rea
7. Marcus Rea
8. Marcell Coetzee(NIQ)
9. John Cooney(Leinster)
10. Michael Lowry
11. Jacob Stockdale
12. Stuart McCloskey
13. Luke Marshall
14. Robert Balacoune
15. Will Addison(Exile)

[thecrouch]

What I'm getting at is we need a team that has an 'Ulster' culture right through it, supplemented by quality imports. A team that are proud to play for 'their' province, and have the qualities that make so many of us proud to say we are from Ulster. What I feel we have now is simply another branch of the IRFU with little real identity.

Unless we get freakishly lucky with a batch of quality players all coming through at the same time (like Munster did in the 00s) then we wouldn't be able to compete at the business end of the season if we had a homegrown team unfortunately.

Thanks to the number of players and amount of money floating about the Leinster branch, the reality is that often the cast offs from Leinster are better than the guys we can produce. Their schools are churning out guys who are almost professional.

[HammerTime]

Elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about we’re missing out on half of our potential young players by not kicking and screaming our way into nationalist schools to play rugby. The odd school has given it a go but most are reluctant. With the success of the Irish rugby team recently this shouldn’t be an impossible task. Dublin needs to take the lead in this. Also the same with working class state schools. Most of the rugby snobs on here couldn’t bare the thought of it but I know Dromore High School bucks the trend with this their program seems to be top notch. We need to spread the net as far and wide as possible. It’s all about the schools rather than clubs the youngsters are there all week so an almost semi professional program can be set up around them. Schools schools schools IRFU were are the grants and the ambition to make this happen?!

[Dublin4]

Leinster are out of sight of the rest because of the conveyor belt of talent delivered by a dozen private elite schools which no other province has.
Dare I say it is even one school, St Michaels? There are probably only 100 secondary schools in Leinster where rugby has a serious foothold, if you can call it "serious." This year, a new Church of Ireland school in Greystones, Co Wicklow, called Templecarrig had their first sixth year and they got to the final of the second tier section only to be drawn in the proper schools against Michaels. The result was something like 63 nil.
The rest of the secondary schools here play GAA and local kids can only learn rugby in the local club.

Getting a broader mix of talent would be great for you but don't expect an improvement until you have academy type structures and support in the top schools.

[Silverstu]

Maybe I should change that to HAS been failing, and for a long time, minimal home grown forwards have come through while in the backs we have been decent but not great. No good replacement/adequate backup for Ruan, while quite a few decent to Ireland quality players elsewhere in the backline have come through.

I'd agree with that- hopefully the lads I mentioned and the others beneath them will come good - it's not guaranteed and it will be another failing if they don't but I'm optimistic,we really need some homegrown forwards -McCann at the very least looks special and Tom Stewart should give McBurney a run for his money . I'd forgotten Lowry as well, it would be great if he could establish himself at out half but we will see if he's up to it.

Hume looked decent.

I thought so- looked a lot sharper than last week, hopefully kicks on some more -he's only 21/22?

My main source for optimism is McFarland is a really good coach- doesn't bulls!!t, very smart and seems to get the best out of the guys. I think we'll come good - maybe not in time for our semi finals but for the following season and I expect some more young guns form the academy to break into the squad - guys like McCann, Tom Moore, Stewart Moore and McIlroy. Hopefully either/both of Finlay and Doak come through too. But yeah we've a fair bit go to rival Leinsters conveyer belt of talent.

[Snipe Watson]

Firstly all credit to Leinster seconds, played great rugby and deserved the victory. As a proud Ulsterman I must say I feel really depressed this morning, the Belfast branch of the IRFU isn't performing anywhere near where it needs to, and a lot of this has to be blamed on the academy. We also have an English coach and a Scottish head honcho. Lets look at our starting XV for this match and we can quibble on the classification of one or two:

Ulster through and through
Rea, Lyttle, McCloskey, Hume, Stockdale

Sort of half Ulster (think he was born in Leinster but came through our schools system)
TOT

Leinster through and through
EOS, Murphy, Cooney, Madigan

Bought in talent
Herring, Carter (c), Treadwell, Coetzee, Faddes

There you have it, 5 that are Ulster through and through and only 2 of them would be Ireland standard currently. Simply not good enough.

You're harking after something that hasn't existed for some time. The Ulster representative team of old is a distant memory.
What we have now is a professional team nominally run by the Ulster branch of the IRFU, but ultimately controlled by and a function of project Ireland.

[Lurgan Lad]

Firstly all credit to Leinster seconds, played great rugby and deserved the victory. As a proud Ulsterman I must say I feel really depressed this morning, the Belfast branch of the IRFU isn't performing anywhere near where it needs to, and a lot of this has to be blamed on the academy. We also have an English coach and a Scottish head honcho. Lets look at our starting XV for this match and we can quibble on the classification of one or two:

Ulster through and through
Rea, Lyttle, McCloskey, Hume, Stockdale

Sort of half Ulster (think he was born in Leinster but came through our schools system)
TOT

Leinster through and through
EOS, Murphy, Cooney, Madigan

Bought in talent
Herring, Carter (c), Treadwell, Coetzee, Faddes

There you have it, 5 that are Ulster through and through and only 2 of them would be Ireland standard currently. Simply not good enough.

You're harking after something that hasn't existed for some time. The Ulster representative team of old is a distant memory.
What we have now is a professional team nominally run by the Ulster branch of the IRFU, but ultimately controlled by and a function of project Ireland.

You are, of course, correct Snipe. I guess losing to Leinster 2nds, having a branch that appears to be dictated to from Dublin, and having a team that I feel less connected to (if possible I'm not trying to slag off any of our players that wear the shirt) combine to make me feel a bit depressed.

On the academy I guess we have been hearing for a number of years that it has been improving, and especially in the forwards we are still waiting but hopefully some of them come through as quality players.

[solidarity]

This is Snipe's key phrase: 'a function of project Ireland.' There's no doubt that the national team has priority over everything else. In some ways, thus has worked to our advantage. As Bayern and LL have shown, an Ulster team shorn of its imports would be in deep trouble; were just not producing the players. D4's policy of moving the Leinster 'surplus' around keeps the lads in Ireland and helps the rest of us out.

We are, indeed, no longer a representative team... but Leinster are. I don't know enough about Munster and Connaught. Is there a straightforward answer to the question, 'If the Mexicans can do it, why can't we?' I doubt it.

I also don't buy into the idea that D4 don't like Ulster and want to keep us as second to Leinster. How is it in the IRFU's interest to have a weakened Ulster? It's not at all.

[therealspratt]

Ulster's failings are ultimately of Ulster's making, it's not anyone else's fault that the players we're producing aren't of the same standard as Leinster's.

[Bobbievee]

But amidst all this, there has to be some options other than Coetzee and Mccloskey smash em and bash em?

[Lurgan Lad]

But amidst all this, there has to be some options other than Coetzee and Mccloskey smash em and bash em?

We pretty much do have just 2 major ball carriers at the minute, not hard for teams to gameplan against.