NO GOOD FRIDAY

Friday’s defeat to Glasgow has left Ulster’s play-off hopes looking rather bleak.

Admittedly not many fans would have expected Les Kiss’ men to go to Scotstoun and pick up all four points, especially since Gregor Townsend was able to call upon the services of 18 of his Scottish internationals for the game, but even so, this result has marked a new low in Ulster’s already turbulent season.

Before the game even began the questions began to fly as to why their international trio of Rory Best, Jared Payne and Andrew Trimble didn’t make the trip despite being available for selection. Undoubtedly this was going to be one of their biggest games of the season and whenever Munster and Leinster announced their teams stacked full of their Ireland contingent you wondered why Ulster hadn’t done the same.

Post-match the decision looked even more bizarre. Perhaps Ulster still wouldn’t have held on to their lead if Best, Payne and Trimble were in the wings to be brought on, but you can guarantee it would have been a closer game if they had. You’d certainly expect the leadership qualities of those three men coming on off the bench would have been a huge lift, especially if they had come on just after Hogg’s try.

That said, maybe it is better to focus on what we know as opposed to the endless ifs that we can muster.

What we do know is that the Ulstermen faded fast towards the end of the game. In the first half they were holding strong in defence and the endless penalty concessions weren’t a major concern. Down by four points and chasing the game with ten minutes to play, that was a time for cool heads. Instead both Robbie Diack and Rob Herring gave away ridiculous penalties in the 22 that just compounded Ulster’s errors into points for the opposition.

Hogg’s penalty sealed something of the inevitable – even when Russell missed a straightforward effort a few minutes earlier you got the sense that Ulster would find a way to leave Scotland with nothing and they did. How ironic that after 79 minutes of completely even scrums, the very last one of the game capitulated and cost Ulster a point they probably just about deserved.

It means Les Kiss has to go back to the drawing board and try and work out how on earth his side fell apart towards the latter stages of the game and ended up getting nothing. It could very well be a simple case of tiredness on the part of the visitors who gave everything in defence and at the breakdown for 55 minutes before the tide turned and the hosts’ international quality off the bench took over.

Combined with the Scarlets’ unlikely win away to the Ospreys (where Ulster still need to go on the last day of the season), it makes Friday’s game against league leaders Connacht massively important. If Ulster still harbour any top four ambitions (and they are by no means out of the running yet) then all four of their remaining games become must wins. Any slip-ups from here to the end of the season and they can kiss that play-off place goodbye.

And yet, of course, they know that.

In fact it is unbelievable to state the fact that Ulster’s Champions’ Cup spot is not guaranteed for next season either. With Edinburgh and Cardiff making steady headway in the background, should Ulster fail to pick up at least two, if not three, wins over the course of the remainder of the season then they are in serious jeopardy of missing out on the top table of European rugby next season.

Fighting on two fronts will not be easy, and it’s probably going to come down to the old cliché of “taking each game as it comes”. After Connacht we go to Zebre away which tripped us up last season, then the old rivals Leinster roll into Belfast before we finally head to Swansea to take on the Ospreys. Truth is there are no easy games left and it will take a huge squad effort to get us over the line – be that for top four qualification or even just European qualification.

Best, Payne and Trimble will be back this week. Some will still question where they were last week. However that no longer matters – the Glasgow game needs parked immediately and Connacht needs to be the main focus. Four points is the only outcome there that will do because if we lose another home game then the mountain becomes even bigger.

Not that it was that small to begin with.

STATE OF THE NATION

And so ends the Six Nations.

Amidst gypsy gate scandals and citing concerns, all credit to England for winning the Grand Slam. A lot of people will claim it was an “easy Slam”, but the truth is there is no such thing – it is hard to win every game in a Six Nations championship. Eddie Jones has revitalised the national side: his decisions to move Chris Robshaw to openside and hand Dylan Hartley the captaincy have been masterstrokes that have changed England’s fortunes dramatically.

As for Ireland, I feel it was summed up best by George Hook: “When did coming third represent a success for Ireland?”

It is not a Six Nations for Ireland to remember, and one suspects they won’t. Besides the few bright spots that came from the tournament, there wasn’t much to cheer for Joe Schmidt and his coaching staff and it leaves a lot of questions hanging in the air surrounding this squad before they travel to South Africa in the summer.

So here is my summation of the Six Nations, split into the good, the bad and the ugly!

The good

- CJ Stander has announced himself on the international scene with a bang. He managed to transfer his excellent provincial form with Munster into a green shirt and has proven that he can hack it at the highest level. He adds yet another option in a crowded back row with both Peter O’Mahony and Chris Henry still to add back into the mix alongside Sean O’Brien and Jamie Heaslip.
- Amongst the poor performances some young players did get their chance to impress. Finlay Bealham, Ultan Dillane, Josh van der Flier and Stuart McCloskey all got game time with Dillane’s appearance off the bench at Twickenham one of the more impressive cameos of the Six Nations.
- Jonny Sexton got back to form as the tournament went on. There were doubts over the fly-half going into February but the Leinster man certainly turned those on their head with some excellent performances, especially against Italy and Scotland.

The bad 

- In the end the stats will reflect that Ireland picked up just two wins, and they were at home to Italy and Scotland – not exactly the most impressive return. Admittedly winning at Twickenham was always going to be tricky but based on the fixtures Ireland had you would have expected four wins with the Twickenham match deciding the Grand Slam. In the end we were left needing to beat Scotland just to finish third.
- On the whole Ireland just did not look impressive. With a back line that constantly had to be reshuffled it’s understandable however things never looked fluid for Schmidt’s men and the tries didn’t flow like we were hoping they would. It was only whenever the two weaker sides in the competition came to Dublin that our backs showed any sign of a clinical edge. That has to be a concern going forward.
- Schmidt went with his tried and tested throughout the tournament without paying any attention to form. Despite having played just two games coming into the Six Nations Jared Payne was thrust straight into the centre with Robbie Henshaw despite Stuart McCloskey being the form centre in Ireland. Paddy Jackson didn’t even get a minute of game time despite being the form fly-half either.

The ugly 

- Italy’s form over the Six Nations should have afforded Schmidt some wiggle room to work with his selection. Dillane had impressed enough against England to deserve a start and Finlay Bealham could have been given a start too. Even with Ireland needing a win in that game, everyone could see that Ireland were so superior to their opponents that there was enough to win with those young guys starting.
- Ireland’s average squad age was the highest of the six countries, and after a World Cup that isn’t something to be that proud of. True, experience is a good thing to have in a squad, especially if you’re trying to win a tournament, but it’s time to be looking towards the 2019 World Cup and focusing on who will lead the Irish charge then. Right now it looks like that isn’t a priority.

WORK TO DO

Let’s not fool ourselves, it was just Italy.

Fans of Georgia would probably have been cringing at the sub-standard performance Italy put in and would be wondering to themselves what their country has to do to make it into the Six Nations or, at the very worst, be given a shot at replacing the Italians in Europe’s premier international competition. For one of the top six teams in northern hemisphere rugby, Italy provided about as much resistance as a wall made of paper.

Therefore, for one of the first times ever, a half century of points is probably something to be sniffed at. Alright, the overall performance by Ireland was probably a lot better than it has been in previous weeks (albeit, it was against Italy) but even after the full-time whistle there was a degree of dissatisfaction with the game. The demons of France and England had not been banished by that one turnaround in fortune.

In hindsight it is easy to say that this was a chance to continue with Stuart McCloskey or give Paddy Jackson a run ahead of Jonathan Sexton or even give Finlay Bealham a start at loosehead prop – but even without hindsight there should have been more young players involved. This was Schmidt’s last chance to perhaps push the boundary with his selection but instead he opted for conservatism to get the win – but who really saw Ireland losing to Italy, no matter what team they put out?

Put simply, Joe Schmidt really missed a trick here.

There is a line that he seems to have drawn that he must not cross, but it’s clear now he has to take risks. Ultan Dillane showed enough against England to justify a start that should have come againt Italy alongside Donnacha Ryan. The aforementioned McCloskey and Jackson should have featured in some capacity – both are the form players in their respective positions and yet they are still stuck in the international selection wilderness.

In my opinion it’s time to start looking ahead of the 2019 World Cup – start focusing on who will represent Ireland there and allow them to grow as a squad ahead of then. It may compromise our chances in the short term, but if we can give as many young players chances now and allow them to become familiar with each other as soon as possible then that will bode well for us in the long-term too.

Will it start against Scotland? Probably not. There’s a lot on the line against Vern Cotter’s men this weekend (world rankings, international pride, World Cup seedings, you know all that malarkey) so we’ll probably see something resembling Ireland’s “strongest” team again on Saturday (and no I do not regret the quotation marks over strongest).

It is concerning that it has got to this stage though that a victory over Scotland is a necessity to stay as one of the second seeds for the 2019 World Cup – Ireland have fallen a long way in just a year since we were double Six Nations champions. And based on the current age of the squad it’s not likely that Ireland will fare any better in Japan unless the switch in focus happens sometime soon.

But I don’t see that happening.

In such a results-driven business, the IRFU will be desperate for Ireland to finish with a better record than 1-for-5, especially in a Six Nations where we had three home games. Not that I blame them – it doesn’t reflect well on Irish rugby as a whole if their national team finish fifth in the Six Nations just one season after they successfully defended their crown, and even more so when you consider how much northern hemisphere rugby has regressed recently.

No, things are not perfect in Dublin right now. Maybe they won’t be for a while. But if a long-term goal is established (winning the 2019 Six Nations and finally reaching the semi-finals of the World Cup, anyone?) that Joe Schmidt can agree to work towards then at least we can see where the future of our national team lies.

And then maybe things won’t look too bad.

RE-FOCUSING

And things just get worse.

The Blues will trip up several teams this season so let’s not downplay them too much, but this is a side Ulster should have dispatched without too many difficulties, and yet somehow we once again managed to conspire a defeat out of the game. When three flailing white shirts slipped off Rey Lee-Lo as he broke through for Cardiff’s first try, you knew that was the game gone.

Summerhill’s late score was the one that ended the game as a contest and proved that this Ulster side just is not up to scratch right now. At the very least had we managed to hold them out and secure a losing bonus point from the affair it could have been a valuable point gained. Instead, we return to Ireland with nothing, probably a fair reflection on how we fell apart in the last ten minutes.

There need to be some long, hard discussions had this week.

The thing is our squad is talented enough and we know that. But for some reason we cannot transfer that talent onto the pitch, and that is why it is so frustrating that for the last four weeks we have played so poorly. The most concerning thing is we are only a few players off fielding our strongest pack possible and yet we are constantly bullied at the breakdown by opponents, while our backs (which are slightly more depleted) are struggling to make consistent yardage.

It is remarkable how much the view in Ulster has now changed: two weeks ago we were scraping victories, but we were rising to the top of the table and thought that the world laid at our feet. Now, off the back of two defeats, some are questioning whether we’ll even make it to the Champions’ Cup next season. With such a congested table it is a legitimate worry, but one that shouldn’t come to pass. We still have definite top four aspirations.

If we are to make the top four though, things have to improve and very quickly. It is a small mercy that we have Zebre at home this weekend before the three week break for the end of the Six Nations as, even in our current form, that should be a five-pointer that will recoup some of our confidence before we come back away to Glasgow on Good Friday.

That’s when things really get interesting.

For now though, it is unclear where Ulster go from here. I am still of the belief that we have the players at our disposal, it is simply a case that they are not performing to their potential. Whether that justifies wholesale changes I’m not sure, but certainly there needs to be something done to snap us out of this poor run and get us back onto a path that not only gets us winning games again but also sees us churning out strong performances to back them up.

Five points against Zebre is a necessity, that would be a very good start. Then we have three weeks before our game against Glasgow that allow us to get things sorted out for our tricky run-in. The ironic thing is amongst all the doom and gloom our top four dreams are still in our hands, we simply have to get back to the form we were in when we took down Toulouse before Christmas and then we will be in a good place.

Can we still do it? Of course we can. Will we do it? That’s up to the 23 players that take the pitch every week.

THIRD TIME UNLUCKY

The signs had been there, and Ulster finally paid for their wastefulness.

Against the Dragons and Glasgow, in spite of Ulster’s inability to get over the line more times than they did, Les Kiss’ men got away with spurning their opportunities. The Scarlets were a lot less forgiving and, unlike the Dragons and Glasgow, had the quality in their squad to hold Ulster out and wrap up four points they deserved.

Or maybe to put it better, four points that Ulster didn’t deserve.

You hoped that with a full week of training together that Ulster would look a lot more competitive than what they did in their previous two games, even with Rob Herring out injured and with Ruan Pienaar sat on the bench, but in the end their defence was too narrow to cope with the dangerous running of DTH van der Merwe and Michael Collins, and their composure in the “red zone” was once again non-existent.

By the end of the match even the scrum, which had been perfectly level up until this stage, had begun to struggle and you knew that the hosts were not going to go the full length of the pitch to win the game. As much as you willed them to, Ulster never even crossed their own 22 metre line before Stuart Olding lost the ball, ending a frustrating afternoon.

And yet that was exactly what the writing on the wall was suggesting was coming unless Ulster improved. The Dragons and Glasgow games should have been enough warning that unless there was vast improvement then Ulster would slip up somewhere along the line, and now they have handed four points to a play-off rival as the race for the top four heats up.

It’s a costly four points to lose.

It is impossible to pinpoint any individuals on whom to rest the blame, this was a team failure. How a team with aspirations to finish in the top four of the PRO12 managed to spend two long spells camped on their opponents’ five metre line only to fail to score a single point from either attack is ridiculous and is where most of their issues stem from, with the weak-as-water defence following close behind.

I can’t quite work out if it is funny how the exact same issues that plagued Ulster against the Dragons two weeks ago still plague them now (and have finally cost them), or if it’s simply just painful. What has been done to rectify those issues is also unclear – we still persist with the same tactics in the opposition 22 that are clearly not working and our defence is starting to leak tries at an increased rate, something that was saving us in previous encounters.

No longer is the Kingspan Stadium a fortress either. Munster have stormed it already this season, Saracens took five points from it (albeit in exceptional circumstances) and both the Dragons and Glasgow came close to taking a result away from it too. Not for the first time this season the atmosphere inside the Kingspan Stadium fell a long way short of what we know it can be, and it can be argued that was reflected onto the pitch.

All is not lost, however.

Despite the defeat, Ulster still reside in fourth place in the league and they still have a favourable run-in towards the end of the season with two games against Zebre still to come as well as the potential to harm Connacht and Leinster when they make the trip to the Kingspan Stadium in April. So to write them off as top four contenders on this one defeat would definitely be an over the top reaction.

No, Sunday’s result was not ideal, but if anything it will be a reality check for this Ulster team – they are not invincible and if they continue to put in these sub-standard performances then they will be found out, especially whenever they don’t have the home comforts of the Kingspan Stadium to fall back on. This weekend’s trip to the Cardiff Blues will be a real test of Ulster’s mental resolve.

For that trip, Les Kiss will need to work the players hard to get back into a state of mind where they are in a position to overcome the Blues on Sunday. If they can then the demons of a week previous will be exorcised and with a few other results potentially going their way then Ulster will be right back in the mix at the top of the table.

A top two finish is still there for us, we just need to knuckle down and grab it.

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.