Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

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

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Ball Boy
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by Ball Boy »

I'd come down on the positive side regarding Isaac's performance. It'll be interesting to see who starts against Connacht. MW appeared to suggest yesterday that Paul Marshall would have been his first choice tonight if he hadn't been injured.

Trimby still appears to be a bit dazed and confused after the 6 Nations debacle. We badly need him up and firing on all cylinders.
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by browner »

Positives..................i couldn't get BBC 2 Wales on Virgin Media.........thank goodness after what i've read here.

Negatives...............i started laying a laminate floor, just knocked off........and i'm bellixed.
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by Neil F »

Red button on BBC1, Browner. Red button on BBC 1. It was working for me tonight. Had the misfortune of watching the whole thing unfold.
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by browner »

Feck sake me finger was sore pushing the red button and the interactive button, all i could get was a teletext type thingy.
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by pip14 »

the game was on in the Rosetta tonight!
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by againstthehead »

I thought Boss had a reasonable game. I think he took on the kicking responsibilities because NOC had a bit of a mare, so fair play to the guy for alleviating some pressure off NOC.

To be honest I'm not sure what William's plan has been the past 2 games. 1 minute he's selecting the young guns, then he's selecting a bench containing Wilson and Web and not using them till 70 mins?
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by bigchiefally »

I thought we were awful.

Pros:

- Our own lineout was very very good. I'd be interested in the figures but it seemed liked most ball went to MMcC.
- Rory Best and Matt McCullough were very good, dogged and effective.
- Ferris didnt have a great game but he was better than most when all he seemed to be doing was mopping up.

Cons:

Where to start?
- We looked utterly toothless in attack. A total lack of invention. When they got the ball I worried. When we got the ball I worried we would knock it on and hoped they would make a terrible mistake as there didnt seem to be much brilliance from us.
- We looked utterly useless in defense.
- Thought first 20 minutes NOC was good, after that he wasnt.
- Caldwell had a poor game, and I am beginning to expect better from him.
- Not exactly sure what B Young was doing on the pitch last night, it certainly wasnt scrummaging or carrying the ball.
- Bloody tommy bowe being our only back who looked vaguely dangerous.
- Paddy Wallace not getting the ball in space once all night that I can remember, though defensively I thought he was fine.
- Andy Trimble getting the ball in space maybe once all night, about 3 ms from our own line. Can people remember when we all thought Trimble was going to be a great or at least good player? The man looks clueless right now. I worry he will decide it is all God telling him to quit rugby, go off to a jungle somewhere and translate the scriptures into some obscure language spoken by a lost tribe of cannibals. Actually, maybe it is God telling him to quit rugby, go off to a jungle somewhere and translate the scriptures into some obscure language spoken by a lost tribe of cannibals. Hopefully a few others will go with him.
- Dewey was on for 20 minutes and we saw one very poorly constructed crash ball attempt, again just poor execution.
- I thought first half espescially we got a ref who wasnt exactly even handed, but you simply have to play that.
- Aside from Ferris and Court all our players arent the big strong hard to take down kind. Even MMC and Caldwell who did try arent real bruisers.
- THought Boss was OK but whereas if Marshall went running across the field trying to create he would have runners off him, Boss had B Young and Harrison standing still 6 m behind the gain line looking for the ball.
- That stadium. On every measure Ulster is a bigger team than the Ospreys - vastly bigger catchment area, better supported, even accounting for their merged state we have more history - yet they can build that stadium. We on the other hand are planning on, after 10+ years of professionalism, putting a roof over a bit of the terrace, putting in a few extra corporate boxes and decreasing the capacity that is already to small for a successful team and big games. Great vision there URB. We think it is bad now? Wait till teams like Leicester and Bath get the increased revenue their new stadiums will bring and we will fall even further behind.


Frankly I think that was a lot worse than Munster and I was pretty stunned that with 60 minutes to go we genuinely were at least in with a shout of a BP. Suppose that would at least show some character in the players, if not much real talent.

Just about the only saving grace we have is that Connacht are a truely awful team, and at home at least we are a bit better than that.


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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by for dog and ulcer »

Not sure Connacht are in any more trouble than we are!! They did much better than Ulster against Munster- we write them off at our peril. Last night was very depressing.
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by aarons »

bigchiefally wrote: - That stadium. On every measure Ulster is a bigger team than the Ospreys - vastly bigger catchment area, better supported, even accounting for their merged state we have more history - yet they can build that stadium. We on the other hand are planning on, after 10+ years of professionalism, putting a roof over a bit of the terrace, putting in a few extra corporate boxes and decreasing the capacity that is already to small for a successful team and big games. Great vision there URB. We think it is bad now? Wait till teams like Leicester and Bath get the increased revenue their new stadiums will bring and we will fall even further behind.
they didn't build that stadium - it's municipal. indeed, if my memory serves me correctly, the building of the stadium was agreed before the Ospreys even existed. and though it's a very functional stadium, it's not an attractive place to go to watch a game. indeed, it's half empty for the majority of rugby and soccer games.

not trying to be too criticial, but let's not overstate what the ospreys have. you're right about revenue in general.

wait until you hear what UB is changing for the new corporate seats in the new stand :shock: (i was told the other day, but i forget the exact figure. it made my hair stand on end :blueafro: )
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by Rooster »

Positives we didn't already know :scratch:
Negatives : we now know how far behind the likes of Ospreys and Munster we really are and thats the level required to get out of a HEC pool.
Severe need for extra cash and players to build a squad equivalent to above 2 teams (Aaron has touched on the start of that though, extra from seats equals wages for Carter and McCaw per season.)
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by ding dong2u »

Rooster after those last two debacles it's difficult to see how we could attract aybody ....... can't pass, can't tackle, can't kick ........ it's a shambles and if it continues for much longer people are not going to pay what they do now never mind more. That was an average O's team last night and we didn't even make them sweat ...... thought we were just dire and it's getting more difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel :twisted:
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by scrum5 »

Positives from last night's match were Rory Best ( probably are best player of the season by a mile ) didn't miss a lineout or a tackle all night .. Stephen Ferris another solid if not spectacular performance ( Ulster and Ireland's future ).. Tommy Bowe (really should have put this in the negatives as he is leaving) the only one in the backs who looks anyway capable of setting up or scoring a try.. Matt McCullough another option well used in the line out, tackled well and put himself about as usual.. Kieron Dawson another fine display for one of the senior players showing more heart than a few others. Negatives..Thought Boss was poor, (1 example near half time instead of clearing ball into touch turned to the ref taking his eye of the ball to ask for the time resulting in the O's nearly turning over the ball... INEXCUSABLE ) sorry to say his kicking was not much better. Don't like criticizing Boss but he has been poor for most of the season..Another negative and this is killing us we are giving away to many penalties, another two trys conceded when we went down to 14 men, you just can't do that against teams like the Osprey's and Munster..Thought the bench was weak and not deployed very well, Dewey still does not look anywhere near match fit and as for Webb, Matt Williams said that he hadn't seen Webb play since he (Williams ) had arrived and after last night's cameo he still hasn't. All in all i am far more disappointed in last night's showing than the Munster defeat a week ago. If only we had scored with all that early dominance we could have won but once again we fail to turn pressure into points. Hopefully the players and coaches will have learned a whole lot more from the past 2 weeks and will turn things round for the remainder of this season and into next. We definitely need 4 or 5 new players for next season
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by colind »

Aaron said
wait until you hear what UB is changing for the new corporate seats in the new stand :shock: (i was told the other day, but i forget the exact figure. it made my hair stand on end
This was mentioned at the Supporters Club AGM and I believe the figures mentioned were between £12k-£20k per year. Also that more than half the boxes were taken.
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by darkside lightside »

Listen - last night was a shambles but FFS let's keep some perspective - after our team contriving to fall apart over a period of 2 years, we aren't going to start playing like the all blacks overnight. In the last 2 matches we have played 2 of the best teams in the league, away, and for a new coaching set-up trying to put in place new systems (and players in some cases) expecting doiminant performances is unrealistic. I'm not a big fan of setting low hurdles to benchmark our performance, but for me the big tests for Williams were the 2 home games, which he passed.

What we need to do next, for me, is comfortable-ish home wins preferably at least one BP win, against Connacht and Glasgow, and any kind of home win against Cardiff. If we get close to Cardiff away, say within losing BP range, that'll do - although the possibility exists that we'll again come up against a good side with a well-organised defence, and we'll put in another crap performance.

That will get us ahead of Connacht, which is all we need. Get this fecking bloody season over, get our squad and coaching staff sorted out for next year, and then let's get back up where we belong.

I can't believe some of the bobbins being written about NOC, after a bad match suddenly it's all "..ah he's miles away from being a decent starting option.." complete cack, he was crap last night, in his probably 6th pro start, all that should tell us is that he needs to hit the training paddock hard. He has the capability, he needs to concentrate on starting to deliver consistently. If in a year's time his kicking percentage hasn't increased, and his game hasn't moved on, that's when we start wondering whether he has what it takes.

I didn't think we were good at the breakdown at all - some good counter-rucking on occasion, but in the second half on our own ball we were very slow and sloppy. Boss was ok. I thought Caldwell was poor, by his own high standards.
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by Rooster »

NOC put in some great linekicks last night in the first half, the place kicking was off but so was Hooks, perhaps a swirling wind on the pitch was the reason, 2 similar kicks in both halfs by both players went to the same side of the post, does that not hint at external force of wind ?
Watched the game again this morning with my sensible head on and the referee was horrendous, Marshall was telling him a lot of the calls and we were getting nailed in the first half for not releasing etc when he was actually shouting tackler away at Trimby before he even had a player off his feet, Ospreys continuously came in from the side but rarely got penalised, forward passes were terrible and ignored his playing of advantage was a disgrace, we lost 10 m at one stage and he said advantage over :?
All that said the reff did not lose us the game.
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