Positives & Negatives: The Magners Semi Final
Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 12:15 am
Well, just home from an enjoyable evening in sunny dublin. Was in the North Stand behind the goals so difficult to read a lot into the game but here goes anyway...
Positives
- scrum was a big positive for me. This was Leinsters full pack and they found it tough enough. Fitzy did very well indeed. I'd be incredibly concerned about the leinster scrum V Northampton. On that showing, they will get pulvarised. We didn't even have botha...
- some good hard tackling. In the second half, all I could see were giants of men pounding towards our line and we were putting in some very big hits. We conceded a very soft try but as I said, we were putting in some decent hits on Heaslip, O'Brien and Wright.
- spence handled himself very well. Cracking player. I'd like to see a big south sea islander along with him at 12 - an Umanga to smash it up and create some space in the wide channels.
- we spiced thing up at the start with a few up and unders and put a bit of pressure on the leinster back 3.
- restarts seemed passable - which is a step forward!
- overall, it looked to be a pretty gutsy display and everyone put in 100%. Indeed, when you consider that we were without Ferris, Trimble, PW, BJ Botha, Falloon and Dan Tuohy we didn't do too bad at all, with the first 4 probably being 4 of our best 5/6 players.
Negatives
- basic errors started to do my nut in. Against Northampton we were clinical and kept the error count relatively low. Tonight we just gave away possession soooooo softly. Crooked throws, overthrows, forward passes - grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. very very frustrating.
- would liked to have seen our pack take them on. Not ONE driving maul alll night. We never looked liked breaking their backline down and we had the upper hand at scrum time. Flippin try a maul from 20 metres and see what happens - at least make them think. Likewise we just didn;t have the ball carriers off the rucks to take out the fringes. Same old story of going wide too early.
Overall, a reasonable display but I thought we lacked the spark that I would liked to have seen for such an occasion. As discussed above, we were without some serious experience and I'm probably being a tad harsh. When we went 11-3, I thought we had a glimmer of a chance and I expected us to at least put Leinster under some real pressure. But we gifted away posession and Leinster killed us off.
The scoreline is probably better that I expected - I would have predicted a 35-15 hiding but I'm just a little disapointed that we didn't make Leinster work harder for it - I thought they were in 3rd gear.
Take nothing away from Ulster. We've had a very good campaign and we were beaten by probably the best side in the Northern Hemisphere on their home patch. Our young lads will be all the better for the experience and it gave the fans one last day out for a memorable season.
Roll on September!!!
Positives
- scrum was a big positive for me. This was Leinsters full pack and they found it tough enough. Fitzy did very well indeed. I'd be incredibly concerned about the leinster scrum V Northampton. On that showing, they will get pulvarised. We didn't even have botha...
- some good hard tackling. In the second half, all I could see were giants of men pounding towards our line and we were putting in some very big hits. We conceded a very soft try but as I said, we were putting in some decent hits on Heaslip, O'Brien and Wright.
- spence handled himself very well. Cracking player. I'd like to see a big south sea islander along with him at 12 - an Umanga to smash it up and create some space in the wide channels.
- we spiced thing up at the start with a few up and unders and put a bit of pressure on the leinster back 3.
- restarts seemed passable - which is a step forward!
- overall, it looked to be a pretty gutsy display and everyone put in 100%. Indeed, when you consider that we were without Ferris, Trimble, PW, BJ Botha, Falloon and Dan Tuohy we didn't do too bad at all, with the first 4 probably being 4 of our best 5/6 players.
Negatives
- basic errors started to do my nut in. Against Northampton we were clinical and kept the error count relatively low. Tonight we just gave away possession soooooo softly. Crooked throws, overthrows, forward passes - grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. very very frustrating.
- would liked to have seen our pack take them on. Not ONE driving maul alll night. We never looked liked breaking their backline down and we had the upper hand at scrum time. Flippin try a maul from 20 metres and see what happens - at least make them think. Likewise we just didn;t have the ball carriers off the rucks to take out the fringes. Same old story of going wide too early.
Overall, a reasonable display but I thought we lacked the spark that I would liked to have seen for such an occasion. As discussed above, we were without some serious experience and I'm probably being a tad harsh. When we went 11-3, I thought we had a glimmer of a chance and I expected us to at least put Leinster under some real pressure. But we gifted away posession and Leinster killed us off.
The scoreline is probably better that I expected - I would have predicted a 35-15 hiding but I'm just a little disapointed that we didn't make Leinster work harder for it - I thought they were in 3rd gear.
Take nothing away from Ulster. We've had a very good campaign and we were beaten by probably the best side in the Northern Hemisphere on their home patch. Our young lads will be all the better for the experience and it gave the fans one last day out for a memorable season.
Roll on September!!!