OUT, BUT NOT DOWN

And so, our European adventure has come to an end.

Despite turning on the style when it was needed to take apart a thoroughly disinterested Oyonnax side at the Kingspan Stadium, only Exeter and Bordeaux could do us a favour by overcoming the Ospreys and Clermont respectively – two results we needed but not enough by themselves. In fact we were out by the time those two games took place.

It was a disappointing end. Hopes were high after our demolition job on Saturday afternoon but we still needed other results go our way. One by one each team failed to succeed – Leinster and Bath fell by the wayside to Wasps and Toulon, the Scarlets were unable to prevent the Saints from picking up four tries, and then to top it all off Leicester were poor against Stade Francais. It was painful viewing as everything went against us.

And this all after we did our part by running in eight tries, which would have been enough to see us into the last eight had we picked up one more pool point elsewhere, be that picking up the extra try over in Oyonnax or a losing bonus point at home or away to Saracens. Ironically we can take a lot of positives from the weekend even if we are out.

Jared Payne once again was brilliant at full-back, a position he should definitely inherit for Ireland given the woeful performance of Rob Kearney against Wasps, while Nick Williams’ departure to Cardiff has done nothing to impact his performances since, with the powerful number eight having another man of the match outing. Rob Herring stepped into the hooker role and excelled too, enhancing his chances of taking the bench spot for Ireland behind new captain Rory Best (congrats Rory!).

But in the fallout of this weekend, you have to take a step back and ask yourself one question.

Is it such a bad thing Ulster are out?

Sure, it would have been really nice to be in the quarter-finals – to have knockout rugby is something to look forward too and it would also have been pretty good to be the only Irish side (and PRO12 side at that) to make the last eight too. But looking at the bigger picture it’s maybe better that we are now able to focus on domestic matters without a knockout game to worry about.

It’s more than likely we would have been back at Saracens in the quarter-finals anyway and they are in incredibly good form, so much so that they were able to rest a few players away to Toulouse and still win relatively handily. In a knockout game anything can happen, but it would have taken a monumental effort to win away in London, one I don’t think we’re quite ready to step up to.

Saracens are my pick to win the tournament outright.

I’m not saying Ulster are a poor team, I’m just saying that we are not at the level of Saracens and Toulon and Racing 92, and Les Kiss effectively admitted it too after our elimination was confirmed. They have top quality players sitting in reserve due to the amount of money they’re able to throw at them, while we have to develop from within – there’s only one winner there.

So in my humble opinion, it’s a good thing we only have the PRO12 to focus on – it’s a tournament we can definitely win and it’s a tournament where we can take a look at some young players and develop them into some handy squad players. We need that to compete with those big teams and to fill gaps too.

Looking ahead to the rest of the season actually holds some excitement.

Our minimum aim should be reaching the top two of the league and then making the final. With the standard of the PRO12 hanging around average, there is a real opportunity for us to use the Six Nations window to steal a march on our rivals and really push our way up the league, as well as introducing young players to the first team as well such as Lorcan Dow, David Shanahan and Robert Lyttle.

Would a season without a trophy be a disappointment for us? In my opinion, no. Our squad still lacks depth in some areas and they need filled, while the signings arriving next season will provide a lot of quality that will hopefully push us to a new level.

So I think if we can improve our depth by introducing some young players to the starting line-up and provide a platform from which we can push on next season then we can look forward to next season with even more enthusiasm than we do now.

And that would be a real success.