BOPB - Ulster Positives and Negatives

[darkside lightside]

sorry to steal yr thunder ath, and still 6 mins to go. I only saw the second half

Positives:

...

Negatives:

Ulster were a negative, disinterested-looking, disorganised, error-ridden shambles. What I can't believe is that it was 3-3 at half time, I only wish I'd seen it before it got embarrassing.

Once again, Ulster go to France - once again, Ulster choke.

[fermain]

choke? Thats pretty acurate, but takesit away from BOPB

[promanader]

+ve - First Half

-ve - Second Half

nuff said.

[Rob6]

Think we lost the game at half time the fact that we had the majority of the ball and ground but only managed 3 points. As soon as BO scored their first try, the Ulster heads went down and the game was over. If Ulster had converted any of their chances in the first half, it would have or could have been a different story.

[Shem]

Positives -

Negatives - Totally capitulated in the second half!

[Mid-Terrace]

+ First half

- Pienaar, cost us around 20 points!!

[King Ding]

Only positive were the forwards in the 1st half and maybe ferris performance

Negs...were to begin
Our expensive imports were completely tom kite, wannenburg needs to have a sit on the sidelines cos he was dure imo, peinaar was equally bad, didn't want to tackle at all and less said about the goal kicking the better.

Backrow had no balance, willie faloon needs to come back into it
Poor game plan was another big negative.

[aarons]

DSLS - you really should see the first half, it was like a different game. handling was poor but they had biarritz under control

[Samstew]

Positives
The first half.
Pearson won't always be the referee

Negatives
Not converting opportunities, territory, and possession into points in the first half.
Capitulating the bonus point.
et al

[Binman]

Positives
some of the young players weren't as bad as the older more expensive imports.

Negatives
too many to mention them all but the total lack of leadership when it was most needed. A shameful result.

[Ithryn]

+
First half was good.
We were able to make ground with ball in hand, which is good to see, for too long we have failed at that.
lineouts where good

-
turned off in second half
diacks injury
kicking, kicking kicking, year after year


as we had managed to finish off one of the opportunities in the first half we would have given ourselves a good shout in the second. Instead we let biaritz pull away rather than play a catch up game.
restarts were poor.

[Mid-Terrace]

Positives
some of the young players weren't as bad as the older more expensive imports.

Negatives
too many to mention them all but the total lack of leadership when it was most needed. A shameful result.

Agree mostly but on your positives, McIllwaine was woeful for their first try. Came off his man and "waved" their scorer in. As for leadership, I agree totally. If someone like Andy Ward had been there the second half would've been a different game, it was a shambles. Rory is a good player and a nice guy'n'all but not (for me) a captain!

[Ithryn]

Too many people are too quick to attack our foreign players. Our scrum and lineout was solid, and hump and pienar linked up well again. The only thing was wannaberg knocked on a few times and pienars kicking. I much prefer have faloon or pollock at 7. And humphs kicking aint much better.

[Ardglass2]

Positives:

Scrum
Diack
McIlwaine
Wallace

Negatives:

Pienaer
Wannenburg (increasingly looking like a one trick pony and not even good at that today)
D'Arcy (its a team game)
Kicking - both Pienaer and Humphries
Leadership
Failure to put points on the board when we were the better team in the First Half
Defence
BJ giving away stupid penalties (shoud we start calling him Ryan ?)
Too many mistakes by Pearson
Selection - when will McGlock realize that Ferris, Diack, Faloon is our best back row. No 7 didn't work

Bottomline is we played our first good side and good hammered - a reality check if there ever was one
The Saffers didn't justify their salaries today not by a long shot

[Jackie Brown]

Positives,
1st Half
Ferris
Diack
McIlwaine, fair play to the guy, took all Biarritz had to throw at him, solid under high ball, although he fell apart like the rest of them in the 2nd half. Won't do anything too flash but would like to think with a bit of care and attention he could be a Bryn Cunningham mkII in the making.
Spence's 8min cameo

Negatives,
Underlying feeling, if Diack had got over in the corner or we had managed to squeeze over in the corner when we had them under the posts after iHumph had tackled Balshaw in the ingoal area, it would have been a completely different game. So a shortened version of that would be, if we had took our feckin chances we would have had them. Left at least 17points on the field at half time and always knew Biarritz would make us pay.
Silly penalties in the 2nd half.
Wannenberg was poor, couldn't catch a cold.
However I don't want to single out individual players. As a team we failed.
First half was the best rugby of the season, 2nd half the errors from the previous games creeped back in. Gotta remember, we beat an under cooked Ospreys, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aironi (twice) plus a draw at the Sportsground. Hardly the greatest run of opposition. We played better than in the majority of those games, but Biarritz are a different class.

What would I change, I honestly don't know, Wannenberg needs time on the sidelines, Pienaar needs to be tethered to the pitch at Newforge until he can kick the ball straight, iHumph needs a run of games although considering it's only his second start he was still one of our better players. Trimble needs to calm the feck down, he seems to over run things or loose concentration too often. Danielli needs a nurse, Mueller and Best need to grab them all by the scruff. I'm sure they will all be feeling it tonight. Not only did they let themselves down, but they let their supporters down and their province down. Would you have seen Munster or Leinster capitulate like that???? HELL NO!!


Could be worse though, we could be LIverpool FC...