Ulster sides in UBL

[Kofi Annan]

Going to be a hard year for Dungannon, thumped 40+ by a Bangor team in mid week friendly,

[UR13IRFU]

They will be a junior club in a couple of seasons unless they buck up their ideas and do some half decent recruitment! Time to bring back their beloved Willie ?! lol

[cheese]

Good luck to all the Ulster teams in the AIL. Big derby at Ballymena vs Quins seems to be the big fixture.

[Russ]

UTB

[drumbo diehard]

Malone3s have withdrawn from Junior League1, strange times!

[Kofi Annan]

Malone3s have withdrawn from Junior League1, strange times!

But, but but, ulster domestic rugby is stronger than ever according to the Col, with more teams than ever.

Oh by the way Queens have failed to play their last 3 2nd XV games as well.

[BuckRogers]

Queens always struggle until term time kicks in to be fair.

[Kofi Annan]

Queens always struggle until term time kicks in to be fair.

They did not fail to field three games at the star of last year

[Aird]

This may well be at least partially down to the Branch dictating these fixtures as in the past most clubs avoided arranging fixtures with University teams before the start of the university year.
I wouldn't be major fan of the Conference League as although it provides fixtures for Senior 2nd XVs it does take up the few free dates for Qualifying teams.
Neither Am I impressed by League Fixtures on Boxing Day, I know some clubs have had games on Boxing Day or equivalent dates but these were largely Local Derbies not necessarily league fixtures.

[dublane]

Queens always struggle until term time kicks in to be fair.

They did not fail to field three games at the star of last year

This is the first year they have been forced to play so early before term has started usually they start in October and fulfill all their fixtures.

[Kofi Annan]

Queens always struggle until term time kicks in to be fair.

They did not fail to field three games at the star of last year

This is the first year they have been forced to play so early before term has started usually they start in October and fulfill all their fixtures.

Maybe we should move the league start date to October to accommodate Queens.Forced is a bit harsh

[Aird]

At one time the Fixture Meeting for the Branch was held in Mid June and clubs arranged the fixtures by mutual agreement with the Branch only becoming involved if the Clubs could not agree.
Now with the Ail round robin QL1 has to finish in March and Ulster unlike other provinces play their QL games on a Home and Away basis which means the available Saturday's when you factor in Junior Cup and And Tiwns Cup games is very restricted.
Then in their wisdom because of the great differences in standard within the 2ndXv league and also the lack of incentive in many cases the Branch introduced the Confrence League large Ly against the wishes of the Qualifying clubs.
The Branch also have now taken over the QL1 fixtures dictating when clubs should play if this is not Forcing Queens to play ,how else could you describe this.
I personally feel that most clubs would prefer that the League programme would commence in early September rather than late August as is the current situation but of course the wishes of the QL Clubs seem to come as a very low priority with the Branch.

[rocky]

The big problem this season is the RWC, which has had a knock-on effect on the AIL. It has started much earlier than ever before. In turn, that has upset the usual scheduling of the Senior league and the Qualifying league with it's congested pre-January fixture list, as Aird says. The other factor has been the reintroduction of live scrummaging to Junior 1. Most clubs are really struggling to find enough front row players to let this happen.

[UlsterNo9]

Can anyone give me a supporters perspective of how the Ulster teams are doing in the AIL? From looking at the league tables it's not a great picture.

On the face of it Hinch and Quins are in awful trouble. Why? Neither seem any better or worse of last year squad wise, if anything Quins should be stronger with McComb out of Ulster contract.

Good to see Ballymena challenging at the right end of 1B, Malone look to be bouncing back and it's pleasing to see Banbridge pushing them.

City Of Derry look like they will take the 2B title, whilst I feared Dungannons slide was going to continue until their relegation win over Barnhall at the weekend makes me think they have bottomed out at a level they will survive.

[Gerald the Mole]

Blane McIlroy back playing AIL with Hinch, how's that possible, is there not a cut of date to sign players in AIL. Was he not playing rugby in America until recently. Or is this more of Hinch Magic .