The Craic in Belfast

[fermain]

Copied from the sportsnetwork - LI site.
What the LI fans thought of the last game...

Success in BelfastBy Donaghadee - August 24 2005

Let’s get the Craic out of the way first. This was a rather subdued away trip. There were not as many present as had been on the last trip to Ulster in 2003.

I probably counted no more than 50 people in the ground sporting LI colours. Arrangements had been made individually so being spread throughout the ground had diluted the effective of the small number even further.

There was a gathering at “The Crown”, the beautiful but “tired” National Trust pub in the centre of Belfast. An overdue refurbishment is planned later this year and perhaps this will include sufficient bar staff to deal with demand. This seems to have been a common complaint in the two friendlies played so far. Great Victoria Street is blessed with such establishments so we were able to vote will our feet. We very soon repaired to the adjacent “Beaten Docket”.

On a personal note it was so nice to see faces that I have not seen for a number of years. Carol reminded me of an incident on the last trip where I accosted innocent LI supporters in the Pizza Express while inebriated. She suggested that they might not have appreciated my intervention. On meeting “Star of the County Down” on Friday I stated that we had not met him before. “But you came over and spoke to us in Pizza Express two years ago” was his reply. Why does enjoying oneself lead to memory loss?

A fleet of taxis took us to Ravenhill where there were more than sufficient staff to deal with demand and Guinness at around £2.50 per pint was very quickly served up.

A crowd of 6,500 assembled for Ulster’s first game of the season. There was one late LI change when Topsy Ojo replaced Dominic Feaunati on the wing. There have been sufficient links match reports on the site so I will just give my personal impressions.

Mike Catt played a captain’s part in the centre of the field and was ably supported by Topsy and Delon Armitage who showed good burst of speed down the right wing. Delon’s touch kicking gained necessary ground but we were unable to capitalise on it sufficiently. There seemed to be a problem with our lineout in the first half when quick positional changes caused as much confusion to our own players as they did to the opposition.

Ulster took an early lead through a penalty converted by their All Black centre Paul Steinmetz. The game was very tense and we lost Paul Gustard to a yellow card as he was seen to stamp on a player in a ruck. Luckily, Ulster were unable to capitalise on their numerical superiority and had to be content to go into the interval 6-0 after another successful penalty kick from Steinmetz. .

There were wholesale changes after the interval, which were confusing as players tended to wear the same numbers and we even seemed to have two number 10s and 13s on the pitch together. These changes, or the half time pep talk, brought a new focus to the team. We quickly reduced the deficit with the first of two tries by Topsy Scott Staniforth added a third and Ross Laidlaw, who replaced and outshone Barry, added one conversion to give us a final tally of 17 points. Ulster could only reply with another penalty.

Juan Leguizamon impressed me but he blotted his copybook with an idiotic, and totally unnecessary, yellow card towards the end. There had been a number of incidents throughout the match and there was a lot of friction, especially between Bob Casey and Justin Harrison. When a tussle had been subdued walking up to an opponent and using both hands to push him in the chest feet from the referee is inexcusable.

Yes the second half was a better spectacle than the first and held out a lot of hope for the future. We seem to be very strong in back row forwards and a set of backs who can not only run with the ball but also know how to score tries. Defensively we were also strong in this game. We prevented a good Ulster side from even crossing out try line. Yes there is a lot of promise for the future.

Carrickman I hope you are going to have a boring season with or without the dot!

and now, the official LI report...

...and does this look familiar?