In the classic movie, Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) plans for
months how to escape from Shawshank and, through perfect execution, manages to
work his way out of the prison and to freedom, even though all the odds are
against him managing to find a way past all the guards blocking his path. His
plan succeeded, as did Ulster’s.
The final line-out that Edinburgh had on the Ulster 5m line could have
been catastrophic. So many things could have gone wrong: one person could have
engaged by accident and the maul would walk over; or even a combined charge
from three Edinburgh forwards might have been enough to drive over the line.
The choice to stand back and not take on the Edinburgh pack was a
risk-and-reward of the highest degree – had it not paid off then the victory
would have evaporated, but if it did work (which it did) then it provided
another valuable chance to hold out the hosts.
Which the Ulstermen did.
That’s not what I want to focus on though. Yes, that was probably the
pivotal moment of the match and is a stroke of tactical genius from whoever
ordered it (presumably Neil Doak), but it is well worth remembering that Ulster
were nothing short of abysmal before that, only saved by the fact that
Edinburgh were equally as bad with ball in hand. It was one of those games you
couldn’t take your eyes off for the wrong reasons.
For example, Edinburgh were so poor that they couldn’t score a try
against thirteen men. When camped on the Ulster line, they kept battering away
with the forwards to no avail, and made no attempt to get it beyond fly-half
Tom Heathcote, despite having one of the world’s best natural finishers in Tim
Visser on the wing. Where Ulster got it tactically correct, Alan Solomons and
Edinburgh got it wrong.
And you also have to remember that had Heathcote landed just two of
the kicks he managed to miss, then we would have lost. In fact, if he’d got all
six (yes, six) that he missed then we wouldn’t even have a losing bonus point
to celebrate, such was the amount of points that the Scottish fly-half
squandered. It just proves that sometimes there is a very fine line between
winning and losing, and more often than not a good place kicker can be that
difference.
It also proves just how poor Ulster were, that they relied on the
wayward kicking of Heathcote to see them to victory. Having one less player
didn’t help, but by then Ulster should have had the ability to be out of sight
– that they were only six points to the good with three-quarters of the game
played proves how wasteful Doak’s men were.
Not that Ulster’s penalty count aided them. McCloskey aside as an
isolated incident, Ulster still conceded nearly three times as many penalties
as their opponents, and any side conceding that many penalties will struggle to
win. Leighton Hodges has come under a lot of scrutiny for his officiating and,
while he did favour the home side slightly, the majority of his calls were
fair. Ulster simply were not smart at the breakdown and suffered accordingly.
It doesn’t help not having a recognised openside. Willie Faloon’s
arrival next season will shore up a considerable hole behind Chris Henry in the
Ulster squad, but right now Ulster are crying out for a specialist openside who
knows his way around the breakdown. Tim Boys has been brought in for that exact
reason, yet so far hasn’t even been included in a senior matchday squad – it
begs the question as to what he’s been doing in training for a 64-time Super
Rugby capped flanker not to be drafted into the team.
Still, another win recorded, another four points, and two places
further up the table we rise. As I said following our victory over Treviso,
it’s better being on the inside looking out than on the outside looking in, and
even though the performances are still maybe not up to standard there are
plenty of games to get ourselves play-off ready, and with probably the easiest
run-in of the five teams chasing those four play-off places, the impetus really
is on us to seize the momentum and challenge for one of the top two spots and
bring a semi-final back to the Kingspan Stadium.
Still, we could do with less performances like Friday night’s.
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