MAKING IT COUNT

It was rumoured for weeks and now it has arrived.

Safe to say Ulster haven’t let us down either. They promised someone that would be on a par with the incoming Charles Piutau (who, by the way, was magnificent at the weekend) and they delivered. With 28 caps for the Springboks and having been awarded the Sharks captaincy for the upcoming Super Rugby season in the absence of Pat Lambie, this boy has a sparkling CV at the young age of just 24.

It is a warm Ulster welcome to Marcell Coetzee!

With his ability to play anywhere across the back row (although his main position is blindside flanker), Coetzee’s versatility will be a very useful addition to our squad. Not only does it allow us more flexibility in our back row selections but it also gives us the ability to blood a few of our Academy back rowers like Lorcan Dow and Nick Timoney while moving Coetzee around to accommodate them.

On top of that we have him long term too, and a lot of credit has to go to Bryn Cunningham for convincing him to sign for three years as opposed to the standard two. Coetzee has gone on record saying that it was a hard decision for him to leave the Sharks so for Bryn to sell Ulster strongly enough for him to commit three seasons of his career to us speaks volumes of our recruitment process.

It also fills a much needed hole in our squad after the departure of Nick Williams (although one suspects he was let go after Coetzee signed). It’s likely that Coetzee, for the big games at least, will be the one to fill Williams’ spot at the back of the scrum, and he’s certainly a quality replacement for the big man.

And now Ulster are faced with a very competitive squad going forward, one with which they can match most other teams in Europe with. Coetzee will provide more than just a ball carrying ability from the back of the scrum with his work at the breakdown exemplary too, while Piutau adds another phenomenal option to our already talented back line.

I mean, look at our options.

In the centres we have Stuart McCloskey, Stuart Olding, Darren Cave, Jared Payne and Luke Marshall all to fit into two positions (three if you include the bench). You don’t have to be a mathematician to work out that five doesn’t go into three. It’s impossible to choose which two miss out as well, all five are remarkably talented footballers that deserve to start for us.

Then you have the same problem in the back three: Piutau, Andrew Trimble, Tommy Bowe, Craig Gilroy, Peter Nelson and Louis Ludik all fighting it out for four spots on the team. Again, six does not go into four and two excellent options will have to be left on the sidelines. It’s fantastic to have such depth at our disposal though.

With such a competitive squad, Ulster should now be aiming for trophies.

The money that the French and English clubs can throw about may keep the Champions’ Cup out of reach (never say never though) but certainly next season Ulster will have the best starting line-up in the PRO12 by some margin – what other side can boast their foreign stars as South Africa’s starting scrum-half, a Springbok back row and a Kiwi full-back who should have been at the World Cup?

In fact, it would be a shame with the players that Les Kiss has available to him if Ulster didn’t pick up their first trophy since 2005. If they did it would be just reward for Ulster’s recruitment team for the exceptional job they have done in luring Piutau and Coetzee to Belfast, and it would mark another stage in Ulster’s development as a top sporting organisation in Europe.

Coetzee’s arrival marks a lot more than just a step in the right direction for Ulster, his arrival signals intent on our part to make it back into the European elite. With our squad looking remarkably more complete with the Springbok at the back of our scrum, there is no excuse for Ulster to now be right in the mix come the end of the season, and that goes for in Europe too.

All they have to do is make it count.

HARD-EARNED POINTS

Another week and another display of mental fortitude for Ulster.

Last week it was overcoming a poor first half to fight back and gain what was an unlikely four-try bonus point away to Treviso. This week was a completely different story as we had to show great strength of character to hang in until the bitter end to see off an in-form Dragons side and grab all four points let alone four tries.

I don’t think I am the only one who thought that Friday night would be a formality and by the end of the game Ulster would be sitting comfortably atop of the PRO12 table, probably with a two-point cushion. But in truth the game was anything but a formality and it goes to show how valuable it is for the Dragons that they have continuity within their side even through the international periods. While we lost four players to Ireland, the Dragons lost just one and it showed.

Their attacking patterns were fluid, their defence was robust and they looked like the more complete team. Had their maul defence and discipline been slightly better then perhaps we would be looking back on Friday night’s game in a different light.

But should we look back on it in a different light just because Ulster won?

Certainly it prevents us from immediately jumping to the knee-jerk reactions that would have undoubtedly followed had that final penalty not gone over, but when you do look at the game in general it wasn’t Ulster’s greatest performance by any means. The Dragons did play well and were a handful but Ulster didn’t cover themselves in glory either.

There were several times where the wrong decisions were made in attack and we sent isolated runners into the Dragons defence and we were punished for it. There was no attempt to suck in the visitors’ defence before going wide, we decided instead to crab our way across the pitch and as a result we never looked like we would break through. Defensively, for the first time in a while, we also looked rather frail which is very uncharacteristic for this Ulster side.

Ultimately, however, we did pick up four points and that was down to a brutally effective rolling maul and the continued rise of Sean Reidy. The maul, which was the catalyst for last week’s win too, was in powerful form and is quickly becoming a weapon for us against most teams while, in the absence of Chris Henry, Sean Reidy has become one of our key players recently with his breakdown work improving every week. He has been one of the breakthroughs of the season so far.

And where would we be without Paddy Jackson.

I wrote a few weeks ago about how much the 24-year old had grown as a fly-half and how much control he now exerted over the game, and Friday night’s cameo off the bench showed he has added yet another string to his reliable bow – composure. The mental strength for Jackson to put that second penalty over, especially after missing the first one, proves how resilient the young man has become.

Ironically we shouldn’t even have had him for the game, he definitely should have been away with Ireland and should have featured against Wales in some capacity. Joe Schmidt’s inability to select the form Irish fly-half for Sunday’s game was without a doubt Ireland’s loss and Ulster’s gain. Jackson has done everything he can to be considered for international honours and if he isn’t given a run in the green shirt before long then it is a grave error.

For all my negativity, we still have to look at this as a positive that we have overcome an opponent that proved to be a lot trickier than we thought they would be and have risen to the top of the PRO12 standings. We have an accessible run of fixtures to the end of the season and we should be able to make a genuine run at finishing in the top two, especially with no European distractions.

And then, of course, our final hoodoo has to be broken at some point.

CHANGES

For all the negativity Ulster get for their performances in Treviso, they’ve never actually lost at the Stadio di Monigo.

Yes, their results have tended to be very close, but Ulster have never actually been on the wrong side of the scoreline any time they go to play Treviso in Italy. Ironically, the only time they have been on the wrong end of the scoreline against Treviso was at Ravenhill a few seasons ago.

In the first half of Saturday’s game, you thought that record might be broken given how the game was panning out. Ulster had resorted back to their ineffective kicking game, they were making far too many errors in key areas and they were slowly losing the forwards battle too with the Italian scrum looking the slightly more menacing in their early encounters.

At half-time you were thinking, “Oh no, here we go again.” Another away performance where we play like a team thrown together on the morning of the game and told to make a go of it. That we were three points up on the scoreboard at the interval was a minor miracle in itself and I’m not sure many supporters had any confidence that we were going to be able to hold onto it.

Yet in the second half everything changed.

The driving maul started it all off – the one in midfield gave us the confidence that we had their number up front and then we were able to apply the pressure in the corner that sent Sean Reidy over for the opening try. From there the floodgates opened and after some good fortune (Sam Christie, that pass was never the right option) we had our bonus point win. A very welcome change to the two point nerve-wracking results we’re used to in Italy.

It is refreshing to see that even with most of our internationals absent we are a side capable of racking up the important wins. Games in Italy may not look all that difficult or important on the outside, but when you consider our record over there and how the game was looking at half-time, you suddenly realise that picking up that fourth try might prove to be incredibly vital come the end of the season.

Equally refreshing was the fact that we had two Academy players making their debuts too in Lorcan Dow and Jacob Stockdale. Dow especially was impressive coming on from the bench and making a real impact with some good strong ball carries, and you would say he was probably in for a debut try too had he not overrun Darren Cave’s pass by a matter of millimetres. With strength like that though, you would imagine he won’t have long to wait for his first five points in a white jersey.

The second half mentality and performance level must be maintained during the Six Nations.

That was the difference between Saturday’s game and previous years in Treviso – we were able to turn things around and put an inferior team away, whereas in previous years we looked like we were being dragged down to the Italians’ level. In the second half there were no passengers, every man went out and ensured that from the depths of a poor first half we pulled out an incredible try bonus point win.

The Six Nations is where a team’s league campaign can be made or lost. If a side can successfully navigate their five or six games while they’re missing their internationals then they should be well set to finish somewhere in the top four, and that must be Ulster’s minimum aim with a top two place well within their reaches.

With no European rugby to concern ourselves with (which I still maintain could be a positive come April/May) our only focus is the PRO12 and if we can come out of the Six Nations still in a strong position then we should, at a minimum, be aiming for the top two and then the PRO12 title at Murrayfield in May.

The blend of experience and youth works well – the desire from the young players to do well in the white shirt is nothing short of admirable and if Dow can pick up where he left off from Saturday then he looks like a handy addition to the back row, while Stockdale and Shanahan should also be getting several chances too and so far they’ve looked pretty good too. If Les Kiss keeps up on his promise of giving youth a chance then there’s a good chance that enthusiasm will translate into the results too.

And that’s most definitely a good thing.

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.

CENTRE STAGE

Alright class, calculators at the ready? Let’s start doing some permutations.

Actually, I’m not going to do that. Much has been made of what Ulster need going into this last weekend in Europe and, quite frankly, it’s going to take a lot for Les Kiss’ men to reach the last eight of the Champions’ Cup because, not only do Ulster need to take the maximum haul at home to Oyonnax on Saturday afternoon, but they’re also relying on two of about six results going their way and even within that there are permutations inside permutations.

Five points against Oyonnax should not be the problem, in fact should things do according to plan Ulster should rack up something resembling a cricket score against the Top14 strugglers at the Kingspan Stadium. How they played in the second half over in the Stade Charles Mathon is more of a representation of how Ulster can play and how they should tear apart their opponents this Saturday.

As for the other results, there are too many that need to fall in Ulster’s favour for them to progress. For example, can you really see Bordeaux-Begles taking four points from Clermont? Or Leinster’s cubs stealing a win from Wasps who were so cruelly denied a deserved win at the Stade Felix Mayol on Sunday afternoon?

Realistically all Ulster can do is set the benchmark and wait and see which teams meet it and which fall short.

What I’m more interested in is Ulster’s problems, and while I’m not referring to the defeat to Saracens, I am referring to their sudden strength in depth across the park following the return of one player and the signing of another.

We start in London where, although four tries were leaked and a bonus point was not acquired, I do not feel Ulster disgraced themselves. Saracens are simply streets ahead of the rest of the competition, us included, and are so well financed and drilled that it would have taken an unbelievable performance to even secure that losing bonus point. It is very likely we were just beaten by one of this season’s main contenders, if not the champions themselves.

Instead, there are a few things Ulster can take from the game, none more so than the return of Jared Payne at full-back, and within 15 minutes of coming back he proved exactly why he is a crucial member of Ulster’s squad.

Having seen Stuart McCloskey and Luke Marshall excel as a partnership in his absence, Payne was put into a vacant shirt at full-back and proceeded to remind all Ulster fans just what they have been missing since he was ruled out during the World Cup with a foot injury - his early stab kick through for Luke Marshall to score was nothing short of inch perfect, and it had to be, and was a perfect reflection on Payne’s class.

Where he fits in is another question entirely. With the aforementioned McCloskey and Marshall pushing to be Ireland’s centre partnership come the Six Nations next month, Payne may be better served at full back as opposed to trying to wrestle one of them out of their shirt, especially with Rob Kearney simply going through the status quo down in Dublin and not setting anything alight with his performances.

Being injured for so long won’t have helped Payne’s hopes of securing a starting place in a very competitive Ulster back line, but Saturday was an apt reminder of what he can do.

Meanwhile, the arrival of the most un-Irish sounding Irish international ever has increased our depth in a position where we needed it most. Rodney Ah You will join us next season and will compete with current tighthead duo Wiehahn Herbst and Ricky Lutton for a starting place in our front row, an area where we are getting stronger but could use as much depth as possible in case of injuries.

Despite falling down the Irish pecking order of late, Ah You is still an exciting acquisition for Ulster. He is a very dynamic ball carrier (something Ulster are in short supply of with the departure of Nick Williams) and if the Ulster coaching staff can sort out his scrummaging, which has been the subject of criticism, then he will be a very handy player to have in the squad, especially as someone to add impact off the bench.

Reasons to be cheerful this week, both in the short and long term. Payne’s return will be a catalyst that will hopefully see us ride a wave into the quarter-finals of the Champions’ Cup, while Ah You’s transfer north has filled a hole in our squad and has increased competition in a position where we need like-for-like replacements in a match.

For a week that started with a loss, not too bad I say.

A TALE OF TWO HALVES

Influential players are worth their weight in gold.

Take, for example, the influence that Paul O’Connell had on Munster – he was their go to man, their talisman that everyone rallied around when things weren’t going to plan. And look at their well-documented leadership struggles now he’s gone.

Jonny Wilkinson carried Toulon to their first Heineken Cup. Granted Toulon probably had the stars at their disposal to put most teams to the sword regardless, but the difference in how they played when Wilkinson was at the helm and when he wasn’t was obvious. He brought them to a new level that very few teams manage to keep up with let alone match.

So let’s apply the same logic to Ruan Pienaar and Paddy Jackson.

Oyonnax tore Ulster apart in that first half, their forwards were bloodthirsty, their backs were scintillating (particularly Uwa Tawalo on the wing) and their set piece was destructive. They looked like a team that disregarded their Top14 standing altogether and saw this as a blank slate from which they could work off.

It doesn’t excuse the fact that Ulster did make it easy for them at times with some slipped tackles leading to plenty of metres gained, turnovers in costly areas and errors when good hands were needed. Perhaps 23-0 was a little bit of a one-sided scoreline, especially when you consider one of the tries was an intercept, but it was one which Ulster would have to battle back from.

As was expected before the game began, if things weren’t going well then it would be Paul Marshall and Ian Humphreys who were scapegoated.

They were victims of a poor team performance, but a lack of attacking potency forced Les Kiss’ hand – one suspects his decision had already been made before Humphreys’ loose pass that resulted in Tawalo going the length of the pitch – and on came Pienaar and Jackson. And within two minutes of the restart you could see the difference.

Passes were zipped across the back line with pace, Jackson was switching play with ease and finding strike runners off his shoulders without difficulty: it was as if a great burden had been lifted and Ulster were granted the ability to play rugby once more. Scholes’ try was a mix of a brilliant move off the training paddock and individual ability while Gilroy’s score was a combination of the backs at their best.

Pienaar has always been a class act in a white shirt, but this season we are seeing Jackson mature into an equally talented individual outside him. Not only does he have the ability with the ball but he also has acquired a fantastic resolve that has served him well. How many other fly halves could brush off two missed kicks for the win a week before and send over a penalty from his own half to win the game a week later?

In the short-term, Les Kiss will be delighted that Pienaar and Jackson’s introductions swung the game for his team. In the long-term, there are questions.

There is suddenly a stark realisation that Ulster function at their best only when Pienaar and Jackson play together. Paul Marshall is an excellent option off the bench, but his and Humphreys’ lack of game time this season means they are not candidates to be starting a game together. Things looked forced and laboured in the first half and it wasn’t much of a surprise that Ulster went in at half time on a score of nil.

The problem is Ulster cannot afford to rest either Pienaar or Jackson as they are so vital to their success. Perhaps Sunday’s second half performance was down to Rory Best’s passionate half-time performance or perhaps Oyonnax tired in the second 40, but you cannot deny the change that Pienaar and Jackson made to the back line.

Marshall and Humphreys were given a raw deal no doubt, and you can’t help but sympathise with them. They have proven time and time again that they can be great footballers, but on Sunday with a pack going in reverse and no meaningful game time to work with coming into the match, what the coaching staff were expecting from them was a bit much.

Pienaar and Jackson will play the last two games against Saracens and Oyonnax before Jackson inevitably goes off to the Ireland camp for the Six Nations and only then will Humphreys get some prolonged game time at fly-half. Then we should see what Ian is capable of with a bit of front foot ball and a Springbok scrum-half on his inside.

But for now there is no denying who Ulster can do without at this level.

BOUNCING BACK

Stepping on Lego is painful. Especially in the dark it makes it even worse that you can’t see it coming.

Having stepped on the Lego you do not then keep your foot on the block and increase the pain. No, you remove your foot, take a step back and then take a very deliberate step over the Lego block and ensure you don’t make the same mistake again. It’s how we avoid pain – we learn from our errors and persist in rectifying them.

Ulster must avoid their Lego block again.

It’s too late, they’ve already stepped on their Munster shaped block once, now they have to ensure they don’t leave it stuck to their foot. Ulster have to make sure they shake off their defeat to Munster and get back in the right mindset for their trip to Oyonnax, because the French side, despite their failings in Europe thus far, will not be in any mood to surrender a fourth defeat on the spin in the Champions’ Cup and concede that they are the weakest side in Pool One.

Even though that tag may already be firmly planted on them, Oyonnax will not have any plans of rolling over in front of their home crowd. No doubt their interests will be firmly rooted in the Top14, but for their own sakes they need momentum and it would be wise for them to send out something resembling a full side for this game in order to gain a victory that would boost the morale of a battered squad.

So while the logic would be to stick your money on an Ulster five-pointer, there is a lot more to consider than just how the two sides have fared so far. On Saturday you would have put your money on a home win and look what happened there.

Is it cause for concern? Probably not.

Every team has a bad day at the office, and you’re inclined to believe that was Ulster’s. On another day perhaps a pass would have stuck and a try would have been scored, or perhaps Paddy Jackson would have found that extra couple of metres and put his kick over. But the ifs and the buts are simply wishful thinking – they did not happen, let us not consider them with more than a passing comment.

Instead let us remind ourselves that what took the field against Munster was more or less a similar side to that which started against, and annihilated, Toulouse only three weeks previous. Has that side suddenly become a terrible side in three weeks? Of course not.

It is simply the fact that against Toulouse everything clicked. Against Munster everything did not.

In some ways I think it’s a good thing that was the case. We’ve been served a rugby lesson in the harshest way possible – after the highs of the Toulouse wins we’ve been reminded that there will be games where we will not perform at our best and we need to find ways to grind out victories there too. We did in Galway, against Munster it proved that there is more to be done.

If, say, we were to go to Oyonnax this weekend and we performed like that again and were beaten then perhaps there is a case to be brought. But given the delightful rugby we were served against Toulouse and then the dogged win achieved in Galway I am more inclined to believe that that is the kind of rugby we can more look forward to from this Ulster side as the season goes on. It will not work week in week out, but when they do it will be poetry in motion.

So let’s drop the knee jerk reactions. No team wins every game all season (well, Saracens are giving it a good go), and it is how we bounce back from this defeat that will define the character of this squad. We will head to Oyonnax knowing that five points will put us right in the hunt for a Champions’ Cup quarter-final place, and it would be a remarkable achievement and a testament to our organisation at a whole that we shook off the Saracens result and battled back to qualify.

Expect the backlash.