The UAFC

Pienaar, Muller, Terblanche, Williams and... Afoa, for the few times he was an absolute rock in the front row. If only his wife had taken to Our Wee Country.

Deraless wrote: ↑Sat Mar 02, 2024 6:17 pm
Honorable mentions to a couple of short termers I loved who were proper men: Terblanche and Lealiifano

Agree 100% - Stefan and Christian were both outstanding - I believe both would have welcomed the opportunity for longer term contracts! Two world in class acts who gave everything they had for Ulster!

CL seemed like a nice guy and did a job but you may be over-egging it.

CIMANFOREVER wrote: ↑Sat Mar 02, 2024 6:57 pm 1. Robbie Kempson
2. Ruan
3. Johann
4. Cooney
5. Marcel

Honourable mentions: Pedrie, Danielli, Nick, Steinmetz, Stephan and especially Christian- all bought in
Dishonourable; Joel Teriyaki, Afoa, Piuatau, Dewey

Forgot Payne- OK swap with Cooney...

In no particular order


Ruan
Brosnihan
Steinmetz
Terblanche
Kempson

Andy Ward
Ruan
Big Nick
Marcel
Cooney

Brosnihan and Kempson did nothing

1) Ruan: top of the list every time, true legend
2) Johann: true leader
3) Pedrie: underrated, understated, absolute rock
4) Jared: superb skills, red card notwithstanding
5) can’t decide between Nick and Marcel: excellent

Short-termed: Stefan & Christian

Sir Ivor wrote: ↑Sun Mar 03, 2024 6:12 pm Andy Ward
Ruan
Big Nick
Marcel
Cooney

Brosnihan and Kempson did nothing

None of them, from RP down, did ultimately.... Kempson dismantled Munsters front row either side. He was a world class ambidextrous prop we weren't good enough to get maximum value from- that's the context. . Brosnihan was good but not great.

No mention of Tom Court. Managed to make it into a Grand Slam Ireland winning side.

mid ulster maestro wrote: ↑Mon Mar 04, 2024 8:43 am No mention of Tom Court. Managed to make it into a Grand Slam Ireland winning side.

I think the criteria does not lend itself well to front rowers or locks . . .

Backrow and backs put bums on seats. Front 5s win championships. Hence why we haven't had a sniff in a decade

John Afoa played 58 times over 3 seasons, majority of time playing the full 80 mins - he was outstanding in one of the best packs Ulster have fielded.

Don't let the circumstances of his departure, and Logans spin, distort the impact he had on Ulster Rugby for those 3 years.

It was the golden era of imports:

Muller
Afoa
Williams
Ruan
Payne

chunky wrote: ↑Mon Mar 04, 2024 12:18 pm John Afoa played 58 times over 3 seasons, majority of time playing the full 80 mins - he was outstanding in one of the best packs Ulster have fielded.

Don't let the circumstances of his departure, and Logans spin, distort the impact he had on Ulster Rugby for those 3 years.

It was the golden era of imports:

Muller
Afoa
Williams
Ruan
Payne

Our front 5 back then was excellent, hence why we were competitive in Europe.

Court
Best
Afoa
Muller
Chewy

With Hendy just coming onto the scene as well. What a time to be alive

Funnily enough I was looking at our 2012 team the other day.

Our 2012 starting XV is definitely much stronger than today's team, I think only Hendo (over Tuohy), Kitsoff (over Court) and McCloskey (over Wallace) would be in with a shout of displacing their 2012 counterpart. And that McCloskey / Wallace call is marginal at best.

But our bench back in 2012 wasn't all that, we had no depth really. Back then we had a ton of 9/10 or 10/10 players, but the numbers quickly fell off to fairly average players. Nowadays we have less top players but the Brennan end of the player pool isn't as weak as it was.

But maybe this is just recency bias on my part?

You also had Wanneberg, Henry and occasionally Fez when not injured, plus Willie F who was also decent, and Hendo often at 6. Great pack that hammered Munster but didn't perform against Leinster in the final. The Sarries home QF was our year, and the red and unfit Fez did for us.

Jacques Burger was also a wall of bone and flesh- unreal car crash of a player. We never risked the DG FFS.. I gotta let it go...

Top 10 in no particular order

Ronald Raaymakers
Tim Boys
Riaz Fredericks
Stephen McDonald
Joeli Veitayaki
Spencer Bromley
Sam Harding
Leopoldo De Chazal
Mark Crick
Grant Henderson