REVIVAL IN THE RDS

I left the RDS on Saturday night hoarse, light-headed, but very very happy. How on earth Ulster held out at the end I will never know, but they showed such determination and belief that if they had conceded it would probably have been an injustice.

Anybody doubting Ulster’s league credentials now is a fool – they are back. After five relatively lethargic performances over the Six Nations period, that match was a real statement of intent to the rest of the league. It was Ulster’s first win over Leinster in Dublin for fourteen years and it was Leinster’s first home defeat of the season.

It was a performance we won’t forget for a long time.

Terrific turnaround

I’m going to be brutally honest, I wasn’t giving Ulster much of a chance before the match began. With our terrible history in Dublin and our recent run of results I wasn’t full of confidence and I was there in faint hope rather than expectation. This was mirrored in Leinster fans’ views too with some even believing that a try bonus point wasn’t out of reach.

But fair play to every single player involved for Ulster, they played superbly and deserved the win. There were some great individual performances across the park, but collectively as a team Ulster were fantastic. They gelled well together, the moves they used were fluid and for the full eighty minutes they looked like a team who knew exactly what they were doing and what they needed to do.

First all, it must be mentioned how well both Ricky Lutton and Kyle McCall did at tighthead prop. Lutton making his first start was having to square up to Cian Healy, who many feel will be the Lions’ loosehead, and held his own brilliantly and even putting a bit of pressure on the Ireland prop. He was replaced by Kyle McCall, who carried on Lutton’s hard work in the scrum, and crucially held Sean Cronin up at the end of the match to hand Ulster the win. Two very good performances.

Where the game was won though was at the breakdown, and the return of two very influential players in Chris Henry and Rory Best. Their impact was evident very early on when both players attacked a ruck in the second minute and won a penalty for Ulster. You can say that Ulster’s foreign imports are the spine of the team, but Ulster’s home players make up the substance and do make a massive impact on games.

Therefore it’s very fitting that Ulster’s two tries were scored by two Irish qualified players. Even more fitting that they were two back row players as well. Robbie Diack and Iain Henderson both crashed over in the corner for their tries and for all of Ulster’s great play in the backs it was fully deserved.

It was heroic defence that helped as well, not just in the final moments, but throughout the entire match. Leinster didn’t have a clean break all match and it told on the scoreboard – two tries to none looks good for the Ulstermen, especially when they conceded six to the same side at Twickenham eleven months previous.

The result (and the performance) is the perfect preparation ahead of the Heineken Cup quarter-final and Ulster will head to London high on confidence. If they play like they did on Saturday night this weekend then Saracens will have trouble dealing with them, and it would set up another famous semi-final at the Aviva at the end of April.

To Twickenhill we go…

Saracens watch

Ahead of the Heineken Cup quarter-final next weekend, I thought it would be fair to look at how Saracens’ have been doing. And the bad news is they’ve been doing very well.

Saturday’s 22-13 victory away to the London Wasps maintained Sarries’ five point lead at the top of the Aviva Premiership after they wrestled the lead away from Harlequins two weeks ago. The London-based club also reached the semi-finals of the LV Cup, however they lost there to Sale Sharks.

They have been boosted by the early return of their England internationals though, as they welcomed back all of them for their match at Allianz Park against Exeter. This means they will have a week more of preparation than Ulster, and may prove vital when it comes to the quarter-final.

They will prove more than ample opposition.

Rabo round-up

Boy do Glasgow look like the real deal. A six try demolition of a more or less full strength Munster team proves that they deserve to be top of the league and they are a real threat in the league. They seem to be front runners for a home semi-final. As for Munster, the result epitomises their season – not good enough. There are many questions being asked ahead of their Heineken Cup clash with Harlequins.

As for the Welsh derbies in the Millennium, it was normal service as the Scarlets and the Ospreys boosted their chances of a spot in the play-offs with wins over the Dragons and Cardiff respectively. Meanwhile over in Italy, one game was postponed due to torrential rain, and the other may as well have been as Zebre and Edinburgh played out a boring match in which the away side triumphed 9-7.

As the race for the play-offs hots up, it could come all the way down to the wire…