GOING OUR WAY

As far as results went, last weekend couldn’t have gone better for Ulster.

They did what they needed to do over in Parma, Glasgow took down the Scarlets (rather handily too) to knock them out of the top four at our expense, Connacht kept Munster further down the table and more or less ruled them out of the top four race for good while Leinster did the same to Edinburgh on Friday night at the RDS Arena.

In fact, probably the only result that didn’t go in our favour was the Ospreys defeating Treviso on Friday night in Swansea. That said, if you were really expecting Treviso to do us a solid then you’re probably deluded.

The overall result of the weekend’s action? Ulster are now in control of their own destiny.

Beforehand we were still relying on other results to go our way for us to make our way back into the top four, but now that we’re one of those top four we know that two wins over Leinster and the Ospreys will guarantee us a fourth successive PRO12 semi-final appearance without needing to worry about what other teams are doing.

Not that we’re anywhere near close to being guaranteed our final four spot though. Leinster in a couple of weeks will be a fascinating match-up at the Kingspan Stadium as they aim to finish as top seeds in the league while the Ospreys are always a tough ask away from home, even if they do languish in ninth in the PRO12 table.

Of course we can still be done favours by other teams, even if we don’t need them. If the Dragons can rile themselves up for Judgment Day and defeat the Scarlets, while at the same time we defeat Leinster, then we will go into the final day of the season in the familiar position of knowing we’re finishing fourth in the league and being able to rest a few players before the knockout rugby begins.

Probably best not to think about that though.

We have a week off, where we get to sit back and watch Charles Piutau work his magic for Wasps in their Champions’ Cup semi-final against Saracens and eagerly await his arrival in Belfast next season, before we have to focus on taking apart Leinster. That must be our only aim at the moment – our trip to Swansea has to be put on the backburners until Leo Cullen’s men are dealt with.

The thing is, though, you get the feeling Ulster are going to do it – they just always seem to pull off a top four place no matter how unlikely it seems throughout the season. Even when we went through that mid-Six Nations slump when we lost to the Scarlets and Cardiff in successive weeks and things started to look a lot bleaker, there was still that belief that the top four wasn’t beyond us, and now you get the sense that we will do it.

That belief will be furthered by the return of a few players, especially Tommy Bowe who returned to the game as if he had never left it on Saturday. His first try was an excellent mix of power and pace to brush off the flailing tackle of Valerio Bernabo and still go over while his second try was an excellent read and interception, even if he did nearly drop it. His inclusion to an already talent-stocked back three will be huge going into the last few games of the season.

Not to mention we have Nick Williams coming back to add some power to the forwards and Wiehahn Herbst to reintroduce to the front row as well. Those two alone will add a lot of ballast to our pack, which we will need against the bruising Leinster eight, and again will provide a huge lift to our squad as we head into the final few weeks of the season.

It’s little things like that which can turn the tide in your favour and now that we’re on the inside looking out we will be desperate not to let anybody else back in. If we can ride the home support against Leinster and then carry that through to the week after in the Liberty Stadium then we should be able to pick up enough points to finish in the top four. Then we can look forward to another away semi-final and focus on trying to finally win one.

But first, let’s just get there to begin with.