Glasgow v Ulster

[Cap'n Grumpy]

Shanahan looked very good again after coming on. Whisper it quietly, but on this form might he be pushing his way up the pecking order?

Think we lost a bit of shape in attack with the Burns injury, pleasantly surprised with how our back row has got on, all three of the lads have put in a shift to be proud of. Think all three of them starting at once though left us a bit light and we've been second best at the breakdown all night, which has taken it's toll as the game has gone on.

Addison gets a bit of slack, given the injury(s) he's coming back from, but a few flashes outside he's not been great this year. The 15 berth is very much up for grabs at the minute.

Shows just what Burns brings to the team when he's not there.

[CIMANFOREVER]

I've been very concerned about the mentality of this squad for some time. When we start well all it takes is one moment to go against us and we never seem to gain the upper hand again. Same happened again tonight, we hardly fired a shot after they scored their first try and spent the whole time defending.

Sure Dan's studied sports psychology

[Big-al]

Shanahan looked very good again after coming on. Whisper it quietly, but on this form might he be pushing his way up the pecking order?

Think we lost a bit of shape in attack with the Burns injury, pleasantly surprised with how our back row has got on, all three of the lads have put in a shift to be proud of. Think all three of them starting at once though left us a bit light and we've been second best at the breakdown all night, which has taken it's toll as the game has gone on.

Addison gets a bit of slack, given the injury(s) he's coming back from, but a few flashes outside he's not been great this year. The 15 berth is very much up for grabs at the minute.

Shows just what Burns brings to the team when he's not there.

Or shows that a scrum half who was coming over as 24th man struggled.

What’s the story with Flannery?

[mea97mb]

I've been very concerned about the mentality of this squad for some time. When we start well all it takes is one moment to go against us and we never seem to gain the upper hand again. Same happened again tonight, we hardly fired a shot after they scored their first try and spent the whole time defending.

Could question then how come we came back against Munster and nilled them for 60 minutes after going behind early on?

Because I said "When we start well", we don't seem to have the issue when we start badly as we just have to go for it.

[Sir Ivor]

I thought our 6 and 8 were very good, as were the centres who tackled well all night. As has been said above Burns was badly missed.
It seems in every match we have players who either catch the ball or carry it trying to make a line break then get isolated because our players are not backing up in the numbers our opponents are. Is this due to lack of fitness or poor training? And why, in tough matches away from home does each of our many captains choose to kick to the corner instead of taking the three points?
Anyway, Shanahan, as usual, speeded things up when he came on and can pass better than either Cooney or Doak. It’s unfortunate that we need one of those two for kicking and neither can play anywhere else but 9.

[Neill_M]

Shanahan looked very good again after coming on. Whisper it quietly, but on this form might he be pushing his way up the pecking order?

Think we lost a bit of shape in attack with the Burns injury, pleasantly surprised with how our back row has got on, all three of the lads have put in a shift to be proud of. Think all three of them starting at once though left us a bit light and we've been second best at the breakdown all night, which has taken it's toll as the game has gone on.

Addison gets a bit of slack, given the injury(s) he's coming back from, but a few flashes outside he's not been great this year. The 15 berth is very much up for grabs at the minute.

Shows just what Burns brings to the team when he's not there.

Or shows that a scrum half who was coming over as 24th man struggled.

What’s the story with Flannery?

Injured in warm up.

[Bobbievee]

I thought our 6 and 8 were very good, as were the centres who tackled well all night. As has been said above Burns was badly missed.
It seems in every match we have players who either catch the ball or carry it trying to make a line break then get isolated because our players are not backing up in the numbers our opponents are. Is this due to lack of fitness or poor training? And why, in tough matches away from home does each of our many captains choose to kick to the corner instead of taking the three points?
Anyway, Shanahan, as usual, speeded things up when he came on and can pass better than either Cooney or Doak. It’s unfortunate that we need one of those two for kicking and neither can play anywhere else but 9.

Nail on the head. Doak apart from his kicking is an enormous liability and does not form any part in an intention to play speeded up rugby. He needs to go.
And why do UR think that virtually conceding league points against Connaught is any less damaging at the end of the season than getting nil points against Glasgow. Our rotation policy is run by cretins.
If we are going to use this season to rebuild , fair enough, but we do then need to more honestly rein in our expectations

[Tel]

Re tonight. Our back row were up against it but did well in the circumstances. McNabney played well. Crothers I believe should make our starting xv before the end of this season. Hume was again outstanding but I think Luke Marshall’s best days are behind him. Billy was as usual injured early on . Stockdale continues only in various short phases and Balacoune surprisingly seems to be catching this habit. Addison is playing catch-up at the moment. Whether he will ever catch-up is probably debatable . Our best player was probably Tom Stewart although he could have done with Andy Warwick beside him.

[MightyRearranger]

I thought our 6 and 8 were very good, as were the centres who tackled well all night. As has been said above Burns was badly missed.
It seems in every match we have players who either catch the ball or carry it trying to make a line break then get isolated because our players are not backing up in the numbers our opponents are. Is this due to lack of fitness or poor training? And why, in tough matches away from home does each of our many captains choose to kick to the corner instead of taking the three points?
Anyway, Shanahan, as usual, speeded things up when he came on and can pass better than either Cooney or Doak. It’s unfortunate that we need one of those two for kicking and neither can play anywhere else but 9.

Nail on the head. Doak apart from his kicking is an enormous liability and does not form any part in an intention to play speeded up rugby. He needs to go.
And why do UR think that virtually conceding league points against Connaught is any less damaging at the end of the season than getting nil points against Glasgow. Our rotation policy is run by cretins.
If we are going to use this season to rebuild , fair enough, but we do then need to more honestly rein in our expectations

Not sure if I'm in a minority of one, but I've actually quite liked the way Dan's been picking the teams so far this year. The changes week to week have been a bit more dramatic than is ideal given the number of injuries we've had, but other than the Connacht match young players are being given chances in fairly strong teams and have been giving a good account of themselves.

With the world cup there aren't any breaks between the start of the season and six nations, given people can't play every week you've a choice between rotating (as our 'cretins' have been doing) or sending second string sides to more matches á la what happened against Connacht. Given the long list of injuries, other than McCloskey the team put out tonight wasn't too far off the strongest we could field. What would you have done differently?

Going into the block of the current block of three games before Bath, there'd likely have been a strong temptation to try and bank 10 points with full strength sides against the Lions and Edinburgh, then send the 'A' team to Glasgow. With hindsight, purely in terms of league points that might have been a better approach, but I like the fact we're trying to be competitive in all of the games while also putting an emphasis on giving the youngsters a chance. With McCann, Timoney and Ewers are all unavailable I was pretty surprised to see McNabney being given a starting debut, but pleasantly so.

[Big-al]

I thought our 6 and 8 were very good, as were the centres who tackled well all night. As has been said above Burns was badly missed.
It seems in every match we have players who either catch the ball or carry it trying to make a line break then get isolated because our players are not backing up in the numbers our opponents are. Is this due to lack of fitness or poor training? And why, in tough matches away from home does each of our many captains choose to kick to the corner instead of taking the three points?
Anyway, Shanahan, as usual, speeded things up when he came on and can pass better than either Cooney or Doak. It’s unfortunate that we need one of those two for kicking and neither can play anywhere else but 9.

Nail on the head. Doak apart from his kicking is an enormous liability and does not form any part in an intention to play speeded up rugby. He needs to go.
And why do UR think that virtually conceding league points against Connaught is any less damaging at the end of the season than getting nil points against Glasgow. Our rotation policy is run by cretins.
If we are going to use this season to rebuild , fair enough, but we do then need to more honestly rein in our expectations

Not sure why you’re ranting about Doak, he wasn’t the scrum half today.

[Dharper]

Some thoughts:

Glasgow fielded a relatively experienced international front row, and potentially their best international backrow. EOS struggled at scrum time. Stewart is excellent, however I’m sure his scrum development is something being worked on, and being sandwiched between 2 good scrummaging props would help.

Super start: However the injury to Flannery/Burns, replacement by Doak was inevitably a step too far for THIS UR side.

There are clear observations re ineffectiveness of our attack, poor use of wingers, lack of zip at 15….but that all starts upfront. Thank Christ glasgows lineout with average otherwise things could’ve been worse.

Our scrum was a weakness which is a recurring theme, (once we add in MM Kitschoff Herring Ewers things should improve).

The real killer though tonight was our breakdown in attack. We didn’t support well, didn’t clear out well, didn’t ball present well. Made things difficult for Cooney….add in his high passing, making forwards jump to catch when running onto the ball….ballsed up a platform to play off…so the backs looked decidedly ineffective as a result with a 9 playing 10.

Glasgow are a very good side, and more so at home…we got what we deserved. There’ll be plenty other sides get nothing there.

For all the selection rotation, it does have a knock on effect with combinations. I enjoyed the performance of our backrow we have plenty of talent coming through….but they are pups as a unit against an int backrow.
This was a bump in the rd, I’d write it off, but know our backrow stocks are deeper than thought.

Addison needs gametime to properly assess where he is at. Undoubtedly his vision is still there, whether his pace still is im not so optimistic. The bread and butter basic skills/decisions will come back with gametime, he’s rusty and currently forcing it, off a poor attacking platform.

Europe coming soon, hope the injuries clear up in time, to pick from a clear deck.
Wilson, (young backrows showing real promise), and definitely McCann in particular have been big bonuses.

[Cap'n Grumpy]

I've been very concerned about the mentality of this squad for some time. When we start well all it takes is one moment to go against us and we never seem to gain the upper hand again. Same happened again tonight, we hardly fired a shot after they scored their first try and spent the whole time defending.

Could question then how come we came back against Munster and nilled them for 60 minutes after going behind early on?

Because I said "When we start well", we don't seem to have the issue when we start badly as we just have to go for it.

Shouldn't matter if we start well or badly - we should be capable of taking the things that go against us and not letting them define the rest of the match.

[Cap'n Grumpy]

I thought our 6 and 8 were very good, as were the centres who tackled well all night. As has been said above Burns was badly missed.
It seems in every match we have players who either catch the ball or carry it trying to make a line break then get isolated because our players are not backing up in the numbers our opponents are. Is this due to lack of fitness or poor training? And why, in tough matches away from home does each of our many captains choose to kick to the corner instead of taking the three points?
Anyway, Shanahan, as usual, speeded things up when he came on and can pass better than either Cooney or Doak. It’s unfortunate that we need one of those two for kicking and neither can play anywhere else but 9.

Nail on the head. Doak apart from his kicking is an enormous liability and does not form any part in an intention to play speeded up rugby. He needs to go.
And why do UR think that virtually conceding league points against Connaught is any less damaging at the end of the season than getting nil points against Glasgow. Our rotation policy is run by cretins.
If we are going to use this season to rebuild , fair enough, but we do then need to more honestly rein in our expectations

Not sure why you’re ranting about Doak, he wasn’t the scrum half today.

I'm sure he can answer for himself, but it looked like a general point to me, not one specific to this match.

[Dharper]

***to add:

The league pts/league position is pretty decent considering injuries, poor set piece (partially responsible for ineffectiveness in attack - platform). Let’s be honest we could finish 1st, would anyone be confident of a home knockout win? I’d take where we are, with the bonuses of seeing the pups get exposure.

Fully agree Payne has been a big loss. Super defender, and so intelligent in attack. Hopefully with family ties, he may return one day.

Interesting to see what happens re coaching extension contracts.

[CIMANFOREVER]

Re tonight. Our back row were up against it but did well in the circumstances. McNabney played well. Crothers I believe should make our starting xv before the end of this season. Hume was again outstanding but I think Luke Marshall’s best days are behind him. Billy was as usual injured early on . Stockdale continues only in various short phases and Balacoune surprisingly seems to be catching this habit. Addison is playing catch-up at the moment. Whether he will ever catch-up is probably debatable . Our best player was probably Tom Stewart although he could have done with Andy Warwick beside him.

Unfair on Luke. Just back from longterm injury and not in his best position. Both he and Addison need extended runs. He's a different player at13 with Stu.

BB is not our long term answer at 10 ( which we all know) and is constantly injured or vulnerable. We are suffering here. I do agree ref AW. EOS is not an offensive scrummager. This was a poor selection for this game imo given the front row we knew we were facing.

Agree with comments on here ref Shanner's not getting a fair crack- his fast passing game is more suited to the game we seem to want to play.

Fair play to the cubs- hope at last for a cadre of Ulster born forwards. That was a stacked, experienced Weegies side, especially the pack. We were in it til the last 10, and ran out of steam and a quality bench apart from Shanners, Neumann and MM.