Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

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againstthehead
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Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by againstthehead »

Positives
- For a decent portion of the game we were in there with a shout (clutching at straws)
- Thought Ferris was immense as usual
- Plenty of heart shown and aggressive at the breakdown

Negatives
- Poor excecution again close to the opponents try line
- NOC had a shocker. Had a great opportunity to peg ospreys back to 5 points in the 2nd half and fluffed it. Poor kicking from hand and generally lacked composure.
- Too many penalties given away in 1st 40 mins - killed us
- No real game plan from what I could see. We tried to play an open expansive game and got nailed. Very predictable and quite frankly daft against such a talented outfit.
- Very poor substitutions - no changes for 60 mins and then McCullough comes off. What a joke. Made no use of Dewey whatsoever when he did finally come on.
- Scrum and lineout poor
- Tackling at times attrocious
- We tried to implement a rush defence but with the likes of Harrison getting sidestepped it was never going to work
- Tommy Bowe being so damn good

Overall, it's very difficult to take much positive out of that game from an Ulster persective. Men against boys in the end. I think it highlights just how far we have to go to be competitive. What further compounds matters is that our star player Tommy Bowe is off to these guys - arrrggghhhhhh.

On the other hand, games like this shows Williams exactly who can step up to the plate. For example, on this showing, NOC is 1-2 seasons off being a regular starter IMHO. We desparately need someone to guide this team from 10. Just no direction from NOC tonight. In fact going by tonights showing, I'd have the Humph on the bench for the connaht game, I really would.
Climb up onto the top of your house and start screaming: 'stand up for the Ulstermen, stand.......'
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pip14
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by pip14 »

I thought our lineouts were good actually
No major improvments from last week though especially niall's kicking ... It was awful!!!

Oh yea, nearly forgot to mention our tackling! Professional players, most getting more than 60 thousand a year................... FOR DOING WHAT!!

The good : Rory Best, Stephen Ferris, Tommy Bowe, Issac Boss, Keiron Dawson, Matt McCullough
The bad : Niall O'Connar, Tom Court, Ryan Caldwell to name a select few...
You've got to get your first tackle in early, even if it's late.
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againstthehead
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by againstthehead »

fair point pip, lineouts weren;t bad at all, I think I got carried away and just lumped all set pieces together... Some nice drives from the lineout but again, we lack composure in the rolling maul - we either splinter or 1 guy run off on his own. Very frustrating.
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rosetintedgoggles
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by rosetintedgoggles »

Well there you go now. All Besties fault. He is not selected and the team still cannot defend.
Any chance we can find some players to tackle for the Connacht match?
NOC.....what a mare! Yeah yeah I know he is young and all that b*****ks. No pace, no tackle, no decison making...Bring in mini Humph?
Penalties...lets give the opposition plenty...just as well Hook was as bit-eyed as NOC

Arggghhhhhhh!
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by MightyRearranger »

Would be interested to know if NOC never passing was part of a game plan to pin the corners. Either way though, he had a bit of a shocker. That said I'd still want him to be starting most games next year. He's shown on a couple of ocassions he's capable of much better, and hopefully with time his consistency shall improve.
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by rosetintedgoggles »

MightyRearranger wrote:Would be interested to know if NOC never passing was part of a game plan to pin the corners. Either way though, he had a bit of a shocker. That said I'd still want him to be starting most games next year. He's shown on a couple of ocassions he's capable of much better, and hopefully with time his consistency shall improve.
Maybe I am being a bit unfair to NOC...however he doesn't seem to relish the physical side of the game amd appears to lack a bit of pace......something you either have or you don't.
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Neil F
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by Neil F »

ATH, were we watching the same game? I'm quite sure we won all of our own ball on the lineout and both scrums competed well against each other at different points in the game. I've included both of those aspects in my positives. The scrum may be tenuous, but the lineout was good.

Positives:

- Good setpiece; I don't think Ulster lost a lineout all game and the scrum was mostly solid.
- McCullough had a great game until he was substituted. Did go a bit white-line-mental when the score was 15-7, though. Ulster went through about twenty phases and showed the patience needed to play that game but McCullough just took it too far and knocked on.
- Ferris, again, was immense; perhaps needs a little work on his control at the base but excellent in all other areas of the game.
- Dawson had a good game when he wasn't being refereed out of it - I've always seen Dawson as a fairly placid player, certainly for a backrow but he clearly showed his frustration towards the referee in this game.
- Matt Williams showed that he can work on the things that don't work - last week, we were poor in the lineout and around the fringes but we did improve in these areas.
- Perhaps grasping at straws but Willams seems to have adoped a similiar approach to Hadden when Scotland were playing New Zealand in the world cup; i.e. realistically, Ulster weren't going to win either of these away games, so he's taken the chance to try players in certain positions and tactics that could be considered risky - I'd say Williams will have learned a lot about the tactics that work well with the players at Ulster and will now know a lot more about who plays where. With experimentation the order of the day, the result may not be so bad; if Williams has set out his stall to win the home games and experiment away from home then the results are likely to be misleading; Williams building up a portfolio of what tactics work and which members of the squad play well in what positions is a positive thing.
- There was a lot of commitment to the shirt from many guys on the pitch - One F and Rory come to mind.

Negatives:

- We're losing Tommy Bowe at the end of the season
- I thought Boss was horrendous. Early in the second half, he stopped feeding the ball to either Wallace or O'Connor in defence but his box kicking was also very weak. He looked short of ideas, got himself into trouble a number of times. His tackling was excellent as always but the other parts of his game were really poor this evening.
- Harrison was atrocious too. I realised the sort of game Harrison was going to have when the O's first made it into Ulster's half - there was a ruck that Harrison approached, saw that an O's player was doing something that he wasn't happy with and, instead of getting stuck in and removing the O's player from the scene and allowing the game to keep going, he started pointing and telling the referee what was going on. Awful by Harrison. I couldn't believe that. Get stuck in, Justin, it's your feck job! There was another image in the second half of the Ulster forwards had grouped together and most of the forwards were breathing heavily and were lashed with sweat and then it cut to Harrison, not even out of breath and with barely a bead of sweat on him. Both of these really told me where Harrison's game is at the moment.
- O'Connor showed his inexperience tonight; not enough variety and looked a little like a rabbit in headlights at times. He's got a massive future but he's been dropped in at the deep end this season; he needs time, and less pressure on his shoulders to really develop. There's a few reactionist posts towards O'Connor in this thread - we've seen what he's capable of but the guy is only 20 and is in his first season in the professional set up; I don't think it's fair to make such snap and rash judgements on Niall. As I said, he's got a massive future in the game. Let's hope Ulster can treat him right.
- Poor substitutions - McCullough moved forward and Harrison off would have made more sense.
- Rush defence didn't pay off; there seemed to be a lot of 'dog-legs' in it, with one or two charging way ahead of the line, allowing O's backs to exploit large gaps.
- Early discipline was poor.
- A lot of players trying to tackle too high; I understand that this may well have been an attempt to prevent to O's offloading game but you need to take the player down before you start considering other things.

Overall, plenty to work on but given the very different defensive and attacking tactics from last week, we have to account for experimentation on the part of Williams. Back at Ravenhill, I think we'll see a continuation of the Dragons and Scarlets game.
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by rosetintedgoggles »

I am sitting here with some Taffy b******d I know repeatedly sending me texts about HC QFinals EDF Cup finals etc...Roll on next season when hopefully MW will have had the necessary time to reconfigure the team.

Why is the Humph so old? Has he tried any of this Chinese medicine yet? I here it takes years of your age...or maybe that's your life!
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pip14
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by pip14 »

sorry Neilf but I thought Issac Boss had a good game!!!
You've got to get your first tackle in early, even if it's late.
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by rosetintedgoggles »

Positives...We scored 7 points
Neagtives.....We conceded 32
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by colinh »

pip14 wrote:sorry Neilf but I thought Issac Boss had a good game!!!

Have to agree ...... he was working hard when others were clueless and disorganised.
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by colinh »

rosetintedgoggles wrote:Positives...We scored 7 points
Neagtives.....We conceded 32
And that just about sums it up rather nicely.
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by Cap'n Grumpy »

colinh wrote:
rosetintedgoggles wrote:Positives...We scored 7 points
Neagtives.....We conceded 32
And that just about sums it up rather nicely.
Nicely?

NICELY????



Nothing nice about it! :wink:
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by ArticDonkey »

colinh wrote:
pip14 wrote:sorry Neilf but I thought Issac Boss had a good game!!!

Have to agree ...... he was working hard when others were clueless and disorganised.
Agree with Neil, Isaac wasn't his best. Too slow and indecisive at the back of rucks. He usually ended up dummying one then another and then trying to run through the o's pack. Couple of box kicks made no ground and gave possession away, maybe due to lack of faith in NOC. He needs to work on the quick ball from the ground but thats only possible with enough protection from the base of the ruck. O'Connor looks like he could do with some coaching with his goal-kicking, his technic isn't quite as smooth as it should be. MMcC had a good game as did One F. Might be worth playing Paddy at 10 against Connaught as his kicking can't be much worse at the moment.
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Re: Positives and Negatives: Osprey's V Ulster

Post by GerryO' »

Donkeys in the 3/4 line. Get back where you belong!
Stupid pens.
Didn't take chances early on.
THE OLDER I GET THE BETTER I WAS
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