Ulster v Leinster

[Meteor]

Sad thing is how can we we recover or face another thumping in limerick come Saturday.

[browner]

Clancy was poor imo...his inconsistancy is frustrating...can't use him as an excuse though.

[Snipe Watson]

Refereeing is incredibly difficult and I’m fairly crap at it myself, but professional referees should be much better than they are. There are two really good refs in Ireland; one in Wales and none in Scotland none of them are called George. The rest need to improve and some of them should do a Changleng and quit.

[scrum5]

Don't think the players around NOC have any faith in him, certainly the fans don't as was evident by the groans when he was announced in the build up. From the very first phase he was by passed and this in itself showed a lack of confidence in his abilities, as has been said before at half time Pienaar or Marshall should have replaced him, but wait till the 70th minute when the game is lost and then do it and as for replacing Diack with Barker when Faloon was on the bench I really do wonder does the coaching team know what they are doing. 51 caps NOC has now recieved that should be his lot, time for Marshall, McKinney, Jackson or anyone for that matter to replace him.......The only good thing that came out of the game were the Leinster fans who wished us all the best and really hoped that we would qualify for the quarter finals of the HC , though on that display I have my doubts. Leinster throughly deserved their victory with their pack completely dominating ours, Ruddock and SOB were both outstanding. For those criticising Pienaar maybe need to watch the game again. Thought Danielli was equally as poor today and has been since coming back from injury, maybe a new NIQ winger for next season.......

[Neil F]

scrum; should say that I'm happy enough with the backrow substitutions; with Pollock's retirement, Ulster are short options at 7 and Henry fits the bill more than the other options available. Seems there's a concerted effort to build Henry into a competitive 7 and that makes sense to me. Given that it was Diack that went off (presumably) in an untimely manner, it makes sense to send 3N's to 8 and Tuohy to 6 while letting Henry plough on at 7 until the (presumably) predetermined time for a tactical substitution.

[Rooster]

We were shoit today

[scrum5]

Seems there's a concerted effort to build Henry into a competitive 7 and that makes sense to me.

Unfortunately it ain't working, and what makes it even more stupid is that you have a natural 7 sitting on the bench twiddling his thumbs for 64 minutes with the score 30-6 and the game over.....as for Tuohy playing 6, it was tried earlier in the season against Connacht and even earlier for the Irish Wolfhounds and was a disaster, though in fairness to Tuohy he was probably Ulster's best player today......

[backawaygoonahead]

Notch, I fear that it's more to do with the price tag - if he costs as much as most people think, you know, he should be like Superman and sh1t... I don't know what people expect from Pienaar but I think his performances in the two games against Bath show exactly what he has to offer. If that's not enough, I wonder which scrum-half is good enough for Ulster? I sometimes fear that the ambitions of Ulster fans are so low that they want a player who makes the native Ulstermen look good and little more...

Snipe - I agree; Chris is a player right out of the Matt McCullough book. I'd rather an Ulster squad and 22 with him in it than without but he's not, nor will he ever be, a world beater. He's a good, honest player and that is what the success of all Irish provinces in recent times has been based on. He's the sort of player that Ulster need but he's not a top player - compare him to Ferris in terms of both speed and build and you'll see that.

Spot on Neil, Notj & Snipe.

I haven't taken the trouble to read back to see who is criticising Piennar but whoever it is should be castrated and none of that chemical nonsense - whip off his goulies or if that is too barbaric use a knife and cut the useless nads off the bar steward.

I am going to brave the video tomorrow morning before waxing lyrically on what was by a long way our worst defeat of the season & indeed would have taken some beating amongst many horror shows last year.

One or two things can't wait:

- talk of George Clancy would be nonsensical as there was so much between the teams that his decisions are meaningless BUT how can you see an instinctive move to the ball for which he penalised D'Arcy as worse than Nacewa having a good 20 metres to see the ball flight which if untouched was a stroll in & 6 tries in 3 games to Gilroy, as a mere knock on.

- more importantly, I marked this game up as "The Return of the Mummy" & it is one of those occasions where it is sickening to be right. The Mummy was absolutely atrocious & I am sorry to say the poor fella himself knows it, we all know it and I sincerely hope McGlock knows it. That entire performance looked blighted by the fact that it was obvious that not one player had confidence in NOC.

It is pretty clear that he doesn't have the ability to play at this level and is wasting a contract. My question is why did it take our management 70 minutes to give NOC the shepherd's crook - that was disgraceful. As soon as NOC left there was suddenly a spring in the step of the side and the ball moved in a way that it had singularly failed to do for 70 minutes both with RP & LM at 10.

I have no idea of the extent of the Ian Humphreys injury but if he is not available for Limerick then assuming he is fit RP must be 10 with Paul Marshall at 9. We all know that RP wants to play 9 but I am equally sure that if you asked him does he want to play 9 inside The Mummy at 10 or play 10 himself - he will bite the bullet.

As for the poor old Mummy - surely he can never play for Ulster again, it is neither fair to the team or the man himself. As for McGlock, I have bitten my tongue before but this time I have to say that failing to pull off (steady now) NOC at half time consigned the team to defeat & was a poor , poor judgement call.

More tomorrow.

[bootlaced]

We can blame individuals,it really is so easy,but we should remember that it is a 15 man team,we were dicked up front, extremely poor at the breakdown that is a worry for the rest of the season,how many other players will be able to hide behind the poor performance of one or two individuals,the Ulster jersey is a precious thing and not to be treated lightly.

This game reminded me of the Munster game without our first team we are quite vulnerable,and we really need a win next week.just such a poor performance really,where we really playing at home..........

[Dublin4]

Sorry Ulster, I thought you would do better especially after the Bath games, but some of your play was very naive.
Sean O'Brien is on fire but really where were the tackles tonight?
As I have said before thanks for giving us Boss. He mightn't be world class but he brings a lot to the party.
Speaking of scrum halves, when is ulster going to decide what to do with Pienaar? You played all the game through him tonight even when it was'n't working.
Pienaar is not doing the business. I question the investment.

From a leinster perspective, i have to say Schmidt is doing really well and is bringing quality players through. It's hard to fault anything he is doing at the moment. It''s great to watch too.
Best of luck with the turnips.

[darkside lightside]

Out though
Out fought
Out coached
Outplayed
No defence around the fringes
Tactics were mad in the first half
Sean O’Brien is some wrecking ball
Once again, no creativity in the back line. If bish-bash-bosh fails we have no plan B
Gilroy try......great.

all of the above..

[Cap'n Grumpy]

Notch, I fear that it's more to do with the price tag - if he costs as much as most people think, you know, he should be like Superman and sh1t... I don't know what people expect from Pienaar but I think his performances in the two games against Bath show exactly what he has to offer. If that's not enough, I wonder which scrum-half is good enough for Ulster? I sometimes fear that the ambitions of Ulster fans are so low that they want a player who makes the native Ulstermen look good and little more...

Snipe - I agree; Chris is a player right out of the Matt McCullough book. I'd rather an Ulster squad and 22 with him in it than without but he's not, nor will he ever be, a world beater. He's a good, honest player and that is what the success of all Irish provinces in recent times has been based on. He's the sort of player that Ulster need but he's not a top player - compare him to Ferris in terms of both speed and build and you'll see that.

Spot on Neil, Notj & Snipe.

I haven't taken the trouble to read back to see who is criticising Piennar but whoever it is should be castrated and none of that chemical nonsense - whip off his goulies or if that is too barbaric use a knife and cut the useless nads off the bar steward.

I am going to brave the video tomorrow morning before waxing lyrically on what was by a long way our worst defeat of the season & indeed would have taken some beating amongst many horror shows last year.

One or two things can't wait:

- talk of George Clancy would be nonsensical as there was so much between the teams that his decisions are meaningless BUT how can you see an instinctive move to the ball for which he penalised D'Arcy as worse than Nacewa having a good 20 metres to see the ball flight which if untouched was a stroll in & 6 tries in 3 games to Gilroy, as a mere knock on.

- more importantly, I marked this game up as "The Return of the Mummy" & it is one of those occasions where it is sickening to be right. The Mummy was absolutely atrocious & I am sorry to say the poor fella himself knows it, we all know it and I sincerely hope McGlock knows it. That entire performance looked blighted by the fact that it was obvious that not one player had confidence in NOC.

It is pretty clear that he doesn't have the ability to play at this level and is wasting a contract. My question is why did it take our management 70 minutes to give NOC the shepherd's crook - that was disgraceful. As soon as NOC left there was suddenly a spring in the step of the side and the ball moved in a way that it had singularly failed to do for 70 minutes both with RP & LM at 10.

I have no idea of the extent of the Ian Humphreys injury but if he is not available for Limerick then assuming he is fit RP must be 10 with Paul Marshall at 9. We all know that RP wants to play 9 but I am equally sure that if you asked him does he want to play 9 inside The Mummy at 10 or play 10 himself - he will bite the bullet.

As for the poor old Mummy - surely he can never play for Ulster again, it is neither fair to the team or the man himself. As for McGlock, I have bitten my tongue before but this time I have to say that failing to pull off (steady now) NOC at half time consigned the team to defeat & was a poor , poor judgement call.

More tomorrow.

I would pretty much agree with most of that goonhead. On the D'Arcy/Nacewa comparisons, all I would say was that I thought Nacewa was making a genuine attemmpt to intercept, not deliberately knock-on, so I thought a scrum was a fair decision. Just a pity he had already called the earlier one as a deliberate knock-on and penalised that, because as you say, it was an instinctive move, and one which I also believe was a genuine attempt to intercept, not deliberately knock-on. Unfortunately by knocking downwards, it looks worse than I think it was. Just because Clancy got that one wrong though is no reason to expect him to do likewise later. Two wrongs don't make a right ....... unfortunately (for Ulster).

Bottom line though is that Ulster were second best in all departments - we can't blame this one on the ref.

[fermain]

Bottom line though is that Ulster were second best in all departments

agreed

[Yoda]

I would pretty much agree with most of that goonhead. On the D'Arcy/Nacewa comparisons, all I would say was that I thought Nacewa was making a genuine attemmpt to intercept, not deliberately knock-on, so I thought a scrum was a fair decision. Just a pity he had already called the earlier one as a deliberate knock-on and penalised that, because as you say, it was an instinctive move, and one which I also believe was a genuine attempt to intercept, not deliberately knock-on. Unfortunately by knocking downwards, it looks worse than I think it was. Just because Clancy got that one wrong though is no reason to expect him to do likewise later. Two wrongs don't make a right ....... unfortunately (for Ulster).

Usually do agree with you Grumps but not on this one - ball was high in the air and Nacewa had to jump and only got fingertips to it with one arm fullyoutstretched - he had no chance of catching it and knew it.

Other than that though I would have given him MOTM - him and Horgan looked threatening every time the ball came anywhere near them

[Snipe Watson]

I was at least a penalty and much worse than the one Adam D'Arcy was carded for.