Well this weekend was just full of surprises
wasn’t it!
Thankfully we registered our bonus point on
Saturday afternoon. We made hard work of it, but thanks to some brilliant skill
from Andrew Trimble, we did manage to cross the line four times against
Treviso. And if we want to finish top of the pool then we’ll need all the
points we can get, especially after Sunday’s result.
All credit to Leicester, they stuck in there
for the full eighty unlike their hosts, but Montpellier really should have won
that match and they know it. Even with a depleted squad they had a six point
lead heading into the final few minutes and they were looking strong. However,
they couldn’t hold out the last Tigers attack, and Vereniki Goneva’s
last-minute try was enough to hand the visitors victory.
What does it mean? Well, with Ulster at home
to Montpellier and Leicester away to Treviso in Round Five, it looks
increasingly likely that we’re going to have a winner-takes-all match at
Welford Road in Round Six. And what a game that will be – the difference
between being at Ravenhill in the quarter-finals, or away to one of the best
sides in Europe. As I like to say – the stats don’t lie: the vast majority of
sides at home in the quarter-finals of the Heineken Cup win their matches.
Well, as long as neither side manage to mess
up their Round Five games, however that looks very unlikely. With Treviso in
disarray after the departure of Franco Smith, and Montpellier’s interest in the
Heineken Cup very low, you wouldn’t put it past both Ulster and Leicester to
come away with try bonus points from their respective matches.
From an Ulster perspective, they will want to
put Montpellier to the sword at Ravenhill, and then hope Treviso can do them a
favour at the Stadio di Monigo by beating Leicester, or at least deny the
Tigers the four-try bonus point. If that scenario played out then Ulster would
head to Welford Road, not only qualified for the quarter-finals but knowing
that a losing bonus point would secure them the win of the pool.
There are many permutations possible of
course, but right now the showdown at Welford Road looks like the most likely
outcome. However, the game is so far away it’s too hard to tell how it will go,
so instead we will switch our attention back to the Pro12 this weekend as the
final game of our Italian Job saga is
played out as Zebre make the journey to Ravenhill.
I’m not going to lie, we need to get our
Pro12 challenge going. We’re not too far behind Munster, but if we want to
finish top of the regular season standings then we’ll have to start getting a
lot of points racked up as quickly as possible. Take into account that we’ll
probably send down a weakened side to Leinster and we’ll be even further behind
the league leaders after that result.
Therefore this weekend we must get a bonus
point on the board. Zebre are not great opposition as we all know – they’ve
just been beaten 67-3 by Saracens – so we really should be looking to score at
least four tries against them, ideally more. If not then we could be playing
catch up very early in the season, something which we are not very good at.
Certainly, these next five games for Ulster
will more or less define their season. Zebre needs to be targeted as a
five-pointer as I have mentioned, Leinster is a case of maybe getting home with
a losing bonus point, Munster at home is a big big match where we could gain a
very important four points while hurting one of our title rivals as well, while
the two Heineken Cup matches in January are very important as we all know.
Winter is when teams start to find out where
they are in regards to challenging for trophies – Ulster need to go into the
Six Nations break knowing that they have a realistic chance of winning both
trophies again. That may mean at least four wins out of five is required from
these next few games – a big ask, but not an impossible task.
The winter action continues this Friday –
we’re not at Christmas yet, so the action must continue. A few players may be
rested, but expect a very strong Ulster side going all out to try and get a
crucial bonus point which would put them back in contention for the top spot in
the Pro12.
The Christmas crackers continue!
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