Ulster v Connacht

[DodgyEverything]

Just one question on top of those already highlighted. WHO decided to sub TMA for Milo at half-time?

Yea want to know the same thing. Milasinovich got folded like a deck chair in the very first scrum and did nothing for the remainder of the half.

You almost sound surprised

Not even slightly, one of the biggest wastes of space to wear the shirt.

Imo Takes Joeli Veitayakis crown of being the biggest waste of space ever to don an Ulster shirt. And there have been some quare duds since he was here.

Leveled my cutoff at 15 because then at least they were noted as awful, and weren't played often. That Milasinovic managed 24 appearances is a sad indictment

[DodgyEverything]

Yea want to know the same thing. Milasinovich got folded like a deck chair in the very first scrum and did nothing for the remainder of the half.

Very first scrum he acted the big lad and pushed Buckley back after the whistle, then proceeded to get completely flattened

We had to move Vermeulen to blindside and brought Carter on both to sit on Milasinovich backside at scrum time.

Happy enough with only two recognized tighthead props in the squad next season. If one got injured and Milo was to be kept as 3rd choice I'd rather just forfeit.

Quite possibly the worst scrummaging TH I think I've ever seen at Ulster, though open for suggestions I'm sure there are a few (would make the cutoff at 15 caps)

Joel Teriyaki, the wrong Fijian? Schalk?
Wither Bronson Ross?

Big Joeli only played 6 times according to a quick search. Bronson Ross with a staggering 30+ appearances might take on GM in a fight for the ages

[CIMANFOREVER]

Bronson was no world beater but miles ahead of Milo

[Bart S]

Irish international Rodney Ah You

[Bart S]

Not many things worse than someone acting the hard man and then being powder puff with what they actually do during the game.

Milo must have been watching videos of Matty Rea

[CIMANFOREVER]

Irish international Rodney Ah You

Ye'd take him now if fit

[So It Is]

Irish international Rodney Ah Jaysus

Fixed.

[ladyboy696969]

Very poor performance. And in a funny way, all too predictable. Ulster seem to have a mental problem with big games that they are supposed to win. If that was Toulouse on Friday, you would have been hitting your straps from minute one, probably lose but you would have played well. Against Connacht, Ulster didn't land a blow for an hour. Crazy stuff.
A lot of doom and gloom around but on a positive note, you did finish 2nd in a league that has 6/7 really good teams.
Still though, I think Dan has to go, a new voice is required.
5 years, 10 tournaments, made the play-offs in 9, he'll get a job somewhere.

[Dharper]

So many issues in the game came down to one thing: Mindset, those players took the pitch totally in the wrong headspace for a knockout inter pro…..how that was allowed to happen was a disgrace.

They lacked aggression, focus, accuracy, cohesion….because they weren’t in the right headspace. For an hour they were absolute brad pitt, it was an embarrassing performance. Even in the few “dust ups”….they were second best looking to calm things down. Would omahony have calmed things down?….my Brennan, he’d have revved it up to get the pack and crowd going. That pack was man shamed and lacked leadership…..moaning at the ref isn’t leadership.

Our top point scorer, most dynamic forward, had 20mins on the pitch….20 mins. One of our most abrasive impressive forwards this yr Sheridan…..wasn’t even in the 23…..bad bad mistakes.
Literally watching a 60min car crash before doing anything about it, crazy.

I would love to see the selection justification…..picking so many guys leaving because they aren’t good enough or are busted and have lacked gametime. Dreadful.

[Dave]

Very poor performance. And in a funny way, all too predictable. Ulster seem to have a mental problem with big games that they are supposed to win. If that was Toulouse on Friday, you would have been hitting your straps from minute one, probably lose but you would have played well. Against Connacht, Ulster didn't land a blow for an hour. Crazy stuff.
A lot of doom and gloom around but on a positive note, you did finish 2nd in a league that has 6/7 really good teams.
Still though, I think Dan has to go, a new voice is required.
5 years, 10 tournaments, made the play-offs in 9, he'll get a job somewhere.

A fair comment.

[richardt84]

Friend used some of his post match interview to support McFarland but one quote that stood out for me is below. He must have been licking his lips after that coffee if McFarland brought that up as it shows he didn’t want to embrace being favourites. On one hand we can’t compete with Leinster because of demographics but on the other hand we can’t have Connacht going in to a match as underdogs despite their challenges in terms of resources and demographics when compared with Ulster.

“I had a coffee with Dan (Friday) morning,” revealed the Australian who will leave Connacht after five years at the helm upon the conclusion of their season. "He said to me ‘oh, everybody is saying you’ve got a free shot and you’ve jumped on that bandwagon.’

"I said ‘of course I jumped on that bandwagon, mate, because I wanted to put that pressure on you.’

[Bobbievee]

It seems we have two Ulsters. The one without our international squad players, which can more than hold its own against other URC teams when they also are without their international players. The other Ulster, when fully loaded up against other fully loaded teams ( e.g. Early new year games and end of season knockout games) is second class in comparison.
Could some of our statisticians prove or disprove this thought?

[Dharper]

I take the point.

We were missing TOT Moore and Henderson. JTA has been super, but as a pairing with Milo they are way behind Moore and TOT, at scrum and carrying.

Henderson was missed badly equally in leadership, and also physically, AOC is too small to dominate, Treadwell is an average performer, Carter has gone missing in action more times than Chuck Norris. That is a lot of grunt in the pack missing.

During the game seeing the players faces, they could see it going wrong, but no one had the gumption to read the riot act, and turn it around.

I hope the leaving of these players this season is used as an opportunity to blood pups, and give them continued exposure, while also investing in guys properly like Sheridan Rea and giving Izzi a look. Certainly Sheridan and Izzy have the raw physicality needed to compete.

Is Flannery has re signed he needs to play, there needs to be investment in him, he cannot be a break glass option.

[allezlesverres]

So many issues in the game came down to one thing: Mindset, those players took the pitch totally in the wrong headspace for a knockout inter pro…..how that was allowed to happen was a disgrace.

They lacked aggression, focus, accuracy, cohesion….because they weren’t in the right headspace. For an hour they were absolute brad pitt, it was an embarrassing performance. Even in the few “dust ups”….they were second best looking to calm things down. Would omahony have calmed things down?….my Brennan, he’d have revved it up to get the pack and crowd going. That pack was man shamed and lacked leadership…..moaning at the ref isn’t leadership.

Our top point scorer, most dynamic forward, had 20mins on the pitch….20 mins. One of our most abrasive impressive forwards this yr Sheridan…..wasn’t even in the 23…..bad bad mistakes.
Literally watching a 60min car crash before doing anything about it, crazy.

I would love to see the selection justification…..picking so many guys leaving because they aren’t good enough or are busted and have lacked gametime. Dreadful.

Hard to argue with any of that, save to say that we can't cite missing players as an excuse. The team we fielded should have been well able to put 7th place connacht away, particularly with home advantage. There were some poor individual performances (burns had a bad day but in his defence he was so isolated by poor back row positioning he had no real chance) but the problem was the same as it has been all year. No structure at all. The breakdown should have been fixed by the coaching staff after the first turnover. Forwards should be forming pods like every other team in the world. They shouldn't be just blasting individually into contact with no support to effect a decent clear out.

Our maul success has obscured the disastrous state of our coaching this year. Take away the maul success and we would have been around dragons levels this year, which is totally unacceptable.

[CIMANFOREVER]

Plus 1