NEW YEAR, NEW CHALLENGES

I don’t quite know how to start this week because Saturday was a complete disaster.

Based on how we played, it would be a fair assumption to say that half of our players were still at home having Christmas dinner on Saturday evening. Of the entire starting fifteen probably only Robbie Diack and Dan Tuohy could hold their heads high at the end of the game, and had Ruan Pienaar and Jared Payne not been introduced when they were, then the final assault on the Leinster line probably wouldn’t have happened either.

Saturday emphasised how much we rely on a few players. You could see a visible difference in the way we played once Pienaar and Payne came on, and without Muller’s leadership and John Afoa’s scrummaging prowess, we struggled to break down a Leinster team which featured many of their second string players.

Admittedly, we did not play well on the day, that’s an unavoidable fact. While it is well and good criticising our strength in depth and our reliance on our non-Irish qualified players, the bottom line is we just did not perform on the day. The RDS is a hard place to go a win, even when you are in-form, so to try and win playing as we were was close to rugby suicide.

But probably the worst part of it all was we didn’t come away from the game with anything to show for it. Had we scored at the end and secured a losing bonus point, it would have softened the blow considerably and would have kept us in the top four of the Pro12. In truth, we probably didn’t deserve the bonus point, but certainly when you compared the two sides on the field, it was the minimum we wanted to leave with.

Therefore, it puts us in a difficult position. Saturday was the first game of four huge clashes in the Pro12 and the Heineken Cup which will define our season, and it would be a fair assessment to say we’ve already stumbled at the first hurdle. Now we face the daunting task of welcoming Munster, who have lost just two games all season, to Ravenhill in what looks like being a must-win game to save our Pro12 season.

Lose, and we will face a massive uphill battle just to reach fourth place in the league and travel away in the play-offs. Right now we’ve lost the same number of games domestically than we did in the whole of last season – for us to be in with a shout at the end of the season then we must be looking at only one or two more losses at worst. Losing this week would be a bad start.

Undoubtedly, the performances must improve. Some claim that our poor performance in Dublin was down to the fact that we faced the two Italian sides four weeks in a row – we couldn’t raise the intensity. This week we can have no such excuse coming off a hugely physical clash, so we should be able to replicate Leinster’s intensity and bring it to this Friday’s match. This week we must get out of the blocks quickly and gain a foothold in the game – the exact opposite to what happened on Saturday.

Expect a full side out at Ravenhill ahead of the following Heineken Cup matches against Montpellier and Leicester. This is the crunch time of the season for teams looking to compete on two fronts, and Ulster will be targeting all three wins which would keep them in the hunt for the Pro12 play-offs and would secure a home quarter-final in the Heineken Cup too, as well as a six from six record in the European pool stages too.

It’s a huge three weeks just into the New Year, and it provides Ulster the perfect opportunity to forget about what happened a week previous and focus on making 2014 a good year for the province. With Johann Muller, Tom Court and John Afoa all confirmed to be leaving at the end of the season, it’s a chance to provide these players with a final shot at winning some silverware with their adopted provinces.

Three weeks, three wins is the aim, and in the context of Ulster’s season, this is possibly required. Our Pro12 hopes wouldn’t be over with a loss on Friday, but they would take a massive hit if we did, and if we travelled away in the Heineken Cup quarter-finals for the fourth year running, then that would be a huge blow after our brilliant win in Montpellier. It’s a big test for us, and if we want to be one of the best in Europe, then we must pass it with flying colours.

Happy New Year everyone!