OUT, BUT NOT DOWN

And so, our European adventure has come to an end.

Despite turning on the style when it was needed to take apart a thoroughly disinterested Oyonnax side at the Kingspan Stadium, only Exeter and Bordeaux could do us a favour by overcoming the Ospreys and Clermont respectively – two results we needed but not enough by themselves. In fact we were out by the time those two games took place.

It was a disappointing end. Hopes were high after our demolition job on Saturday afternoon but we still needed other results go our way. One by one each team failed to succeed – Leinster and Bath fell by the wayside to Wasps and Toulon, the Scarlets were unable to prevent the Saints from picking up four tries, and then to top it all off Leicester were poor against Stade Francais. It was painful viewing as everything went against us.

And this all after we did our part by running in eight tries, which would have been enough to see us into the last eight had we picked up one more pool point elsewhere, be that picking up the extra try over in Oyonnax or a losing bonus point at home or away to Saracens. Ironically we can take a lot of positives from the weekend even if we are out.

Jared Payne once again was brilliant at full-back, a position he should definitely inherit for Ireland given the woeful performance of Rob Kearney against Wasps, while Nick Williams’ departure to Cardiff has done nothing to impact his performances since, with the powerful number eight having another man of the match outing. Rob Herring stepped into the hooker role and excelled too, enhancing his chances of taking the bench spot for Ireland behind new captain Rory Best (congrats Rory!).

But in the fallout of this weekend, you have to take a step back and ask yourself one question.

Is it such a bad thing Ulster are out?

Sure, it would have been really nice to be in the quarter-finals – to have knockout rugby is something to look forward too and it would also have been pretty good to be the only Irish side (and PRO12 side at that) to make the last eight too. But looking at the bigger picture it’s maybe better that we are now able to focus on domestic matters without a knockout game to worry about.

It’s more than likely we would have been back at Saracens in the quarter-finals anyway and they are in incredibly good form, so much so that they were able to rest a few players away to Toulouse and still win relatively handily. In a knockout game anything can happen, but it would have taken a monumental effort to win away in London, one I don’t think we’re quite ready to step up to.

Saracens are my pick to win the tournament outright.

I’m not saying Ulster are a poor team, I’m just saying that we are not at the level of Saracens and Toulon and Racing 92, and Les Kiss effectively admitted it too after our elimination was confirmed. They have top quality players sitting in reserve due to the amount of money they’re able to throw at them, while we have to develop from within – there’s only one winner there.

So in my humble opinion, it’s a good thing we only have the PRO12 to focus on – it’s a tournament we can definitely win and it’s a tournament where we can take a look at some young players and develop them into some handy squad players. We need that to compete with those big teams and to fill gaps too.

Looking ahead to the rest of the season actually holds some excitement.

Our minimum aim should be reaching the top two of the league and then making the final. With the standard of the PRO12 hanging around average, there is a real opportunity for us to use the Six Nations window to steal a march on our rivals and really push our way up the league, as well as introducing young players to the first team as well such as Lorcan Dow, David Shanahan and Robert Lyttle.

Would a season without a trophy be a disappointment for us? In my opinion, no. Our squad still lacks depth in some areas and they need filled, while the signings arriving next season will provide a lot of quality that will hopefully push us to a new level.

So I think if we can improve our depth by introducing some young players to the starting line-up and provide a platform from which we can push on next season then we can look forward to next season with even more enthusiasm than we do now.

And that would be a real success.

CENTRE STAGE

Alright class, calculators at the ready? Let’s start doing some permutations.

Actually, I’m not going to do that. Much has been made of what Ulster need going into this last weekend in Europe and, quite frankly, it’s going to take a lot for Les Kiss’ men to reach the last eight of the Champions’ Cup because, not only do Ulster need to take the maximum haul at home to Oyonnax on Saturday afternoon, but they’re also relying on two of about six results going their way and even within that there are permutations inside permutations.

Five points against Oyonnax should not be the problem, in fact should things do according to plan Ulster should rack up something resembling a cricket score against the Top14 strugglers at the Kingspan Stadium. How they played in the second half over in the Stade Charles Mathon is more of a representation of how Ulster can play and how they should tear apart their opponents this Saturday.

As for the other results, there are too many that need to fall in Ulster’s favour for them to progress. For example, can you really see Bordeaux-Begles taking four points from Clermont? Or Leinster’s cubs stealing a win from Wasps who were so cruelly denied a deserved win at the Stade Felix Mayol on Sunday afternoon?

Realistically all Ulster can do is set the benchmark and wait and see which teams meet it and which fall short.

What I’m more interested in is Ulster’s problems, and while I’m not referring to the defeat to Saracens, I am referring to their sudden strength in depth across the park following the return of one player and the signing of another.

We start in London where, although four tries were leaked and a bonus point was not acquired, I do not feel Ulster disgraced themselves. Saracens are simply streets ahead of the rest of the competition, us included, and are so well financed and drilled that it would have taken an unbelievable performance to even secure that losing bonus point. It is very likely we were just beaten by one of this season’s main contenders, if not the champions themselves.

Instead, there are a few things Ulster can take from the game, none more so than the return of Jared Payne at full-back, and within 15 minutes of coming back he proved exactly why he is a crucial member of Ulster’s squad.

Having seen Stuart McCloskey and Luke Marshall excel as a partnership in his absence, Payne was put into a vacant shirt at full-back and proceeded to remind all Ulster fans just what they have been missing since he was ruled out during the World Cup with a foot injury - his early stab kick through for Luke Marshall to score was nothing short of inch perfect, and it had to be, and was a perfect reflection on Payne’s class.

Where he fits in is another question entirely. With the aforementioned McCloskey and Marshall pushing to be Ireland’s centre partnership come the Six Nations next month, Payne may be better served at full back as opposed to trying to wrestle one of them out of their shirt, especially with Rob Kearney simply going through the status quo down in Dublin and not setting anything alight with his performances.

Being injured for so long won’t have helped Payne’s hopes of securing a starting place in a very competitive Ulster back line, but Saturday was an apt reminder of what he can do.

Meanwhile, the arrival of the most un-Irish sounding Irish international ever has increased our depth in a position where we needed it most. Rodney Ah You will join us next season and will compete with current tighthead duo Wiehahn Herbst and Ricky Lutton for a starting place in our front row, an area where we are getting stronger but could use as much depth as possible in case of injuries.

Despite falling down the Irish pecking order of late, Ah You is still an exciting acquisition for Ulster. He is a very dynamic ball carrier (something Ulster are in short supply of with the departure of Nick Williams) and if the Ulster coaching staff can sort out his scrummaging, which has been the subject of criticism, then he will be a very handy player to have in the squad, especially as someone to add impact off the bench.

Reasons to be cheerful this week, both in the short and long term. Payne’s return will be a catalyst that will hopefully see us ride a wave into the quarter-finals of the Champions’ Cup, while Ah You’s transfer north has filled a hole in our squad and has increased competition in a position where we need like-for-like replacements in a match.

For a week that started with a loss, not too bad I say.

A TALE OF TWO HALVES

Influential players are worth their weight in gold.

Take, for example, the influence that Paul O’Connell had on Munster – he was their go to man, their talisman that everyone rallied around when things weren’t going to plan. And look at their well-documented leadership struggles now he’s gone.

Jonny Wilkinson carried Toulon to their first Heineken Cup. Granted Toulon probably had the stars at their disposal to put most teams to the sword regardless, but the difference in how they played when Wilkinson was at the helm and when he wasn’t was obvious. He brought them to a new level that very few teams manage to keep up with let alone match.

So let’s apply the same logic to Ruan Pienaar and Paddy Jackson.

Oyonnax tore Ulster apart in that first half, their forwards were bloodthirsty, their backs were scintillating (particularly Uwa Tawalo on the wing) and their set piece was destructive. They looked like a team that disregarded their Top14 standing altogether and saw this as a blank slate from which they could work off.

It doesn’t excuse the fact that Ulster did make it easy for them at times with some slipped tackles leading to plenty of metres gained, turnovers in costly areas and errors when good hands were needed. Perhaps 23-0 was a little bit of a one-sided scoreline, especially when you consider one of the tries was an intercept, but it was one which Ulster would have to battle back from.

As was expected before the game began, if things weren’t going well then it would be Paul Marshall and Ian Humphreys who were scapegoated.

They were victims of a poor team performance, but a lack of attacking potency forced Les Kiss’ hand – one suspects his decision had already been made before Humphreys’ loose pass that resulted in Tawalo going the length of the pitch – and on came Pienaar and Jackson. And within two minutes of the restart you could see the difference.

Passes were zipped across the back line with pace, Jackson was switching play with ease and finding strike runners off his shoulders without difficulty: it was as if a great burden had been lifted and Ulster were granted the ability to play rugby once more. Scholes’ try was a mix of a brilliant move off the training paddock and individual ability while Gilroy’s score was a combination of the backs at their best.

Pienaar has always been a class act in a white shirt, but this season we are seeing Jackson mature into an equally talented individual outside him. Not only does he have the ability with the ball but he also has acquired a fantastic resolve that has served him well. How many other fly halves could brush off two missed kicks for the win a week before and send over a penalty from his own half to win the game a week later?

In the short-term, Les Kiss will be delighted that Pienaar and Jackson’s introductions swung the game for his team. In the long-term, there are questions.

There is suddenly a stark realisation that Ulster function at their best only when Pienaar and Jackson play together. Paul Marshall is an excellent option off the bench, but his and Humphreys’ lack of game time this season means they are not candidates to be starting a game together. Things looked forced and laboured in the first half and it wasn’t much of a surprise that Ulster went in at half time on a score of nil.

The problem is Ulster cannot afford to rest either Pienaar or Jackson as they are so vital to their success. Perhaps Sunday’s second half performance was down to Rory Best’s passionate half-time performance or perhaps Oyonnax tired in the second 40, but you cannot deny the change that Pienaar and Jackson made to the back line.

Marshall and Humphreys were given a raw deal no doubt, and you can’t help but sympathise with them. They have proven time and time again that they can be great footballers, but on Sunday with a pack going in reverse and no meaningful game time to work with coming into the match, what the coaching staff were expecting from them was a bit much.

Pienaar and Jackson will play the last two games against Saracens and Oyonnax before Jackson inevitably goes off to the Ireland camp for the Six Nations and only then will Humphreys get some prolonged game time at fly-half. Then we should see what Ian is capable of with a bit of front foot ball and a Springbok scrum-half on his inside.

But for now there is no denying who Ulster can do without at this level.

BOUNCING BACK

Stepping on Lego is painful. Especially in the dark it makes it even worse that you can’t see it coming.

Having stepped on the Lego you do not then keep your foot on the block and increase the pain. No, you remove your foot, take a step back and then take a very deliberate step over the Lego block and ensure you don’t make the same mistake again. It’s how we avoid pain – we learn from our errors and persist in rectifying them.

Ulster must avoid their Lego block again.

It’s too late, they’ve already stepped on their Munster shaped block once, now they have to ensure they don’t leave it stuck to their foot. Ulster have to make sure they shake off their defeat to Munster and get back in the right mindset for their trip to Oyonnax, because the French side, despite their failings in Europe thus far, will not be in any mood to surrender a fourth defeat on the spin in the Champions’ Cup and concede that they are the weakest side in Pool One.

Even though that tag may already be firmly planted on them, Oyonnax will not have any plans of rolling over in front of their home crowd. No doubt their interests will be firmly rooted in the Top14, but for their own sakes they need momentum and it would be wise for them to send out something resembling a full side for this game in order to gain a victory that would boost the morale of a battered squad.

So while the logic would be to stick your money on an Ulster five-pointer, there is a lot more to consider than just how the two sides have fared so far. On Saturday you would have put your money on a home win and look what happened there.

Is it cause for concern? Probably not.

Every team has a bad day at the office, and you’re inclined to believe that was Ulster’s. On another day perhaps a pass would have stuck and a try would have been scored, or perhaps Paddy Jackson would have found that extra couple of metres and put his kick over. But the ifs and the buts are simply wishful thinking – they did not happen, let us not consider them with more than a passing comment.

Instead let us remind ourselves that what took the field against Munster was more or less a similar side to that which started against, and annihilated, Toulouse only three weeks previous. Has that side suddenly become a terrible side in three weeks? Of course not.

It is simply the fact that against Toulouse everything clicked. Against Munster everything did not.

In some ways I think it’s a good thing that was the case. We’ve been served a rugby lesson in the harshest way possible – after the highs of the Toulouse wins we’ve been reminded that there will be games where we will not perform at our best and we need to find ways to grind out victories there too. We did in Galway, against Munster it proved that there is more to be done.

If, say, we were to go to Oyonnax this weekend and we performed like that again and were beaten then perhaps there is a case to be brought. But given the delightful rugby we were served against Toulouse and then the dogged win achieved in Galway I am more inclined to believe that that is the kind of rugby we can more look forward to from this Ulster side as the season goes on. It will not work week in week out, but when they do it will be poetry in motion.

So let’s drop the knee jerk reactions. No team wins every game all season (well, Saracens are giving it a good go), and it is how we bounce back from this defeat that will define the character of this squad. We will head to Oyonnax knowing that five points will put us right in the hunt for a Champions’ Cup quarter-final place, and it would be a remarkable achievement and a testament to our organisation at a whole that we shook off the Saracens result and battled back to qualify.

Expect the backlash.

THE TOUGH GRIND

Grinding out wins is an art.

Leinster made a habit of it in their glory years under Leo Cullen and Brian O’Driscoll. Same with Munster under O’Connell and O’Gara. It was how those teams reached the lofty heights of being championship-winning teams: they could force the results they didn’t deserve.

At the Sportsground on Saturday night we saw that Ulster have evolved to a team that can grind out those close results.

They had no right to win that game, and neither did Connacht – the two sides had played each other to a rugged stalemate and had effectively cancelled each other out for 75 minutes, with a draw probably the respectable result between them. But Ulster were not about to let their winning run come to a halt.

It is said that rugby is just as much about a team’s mentality as much as their physicality, and that shone through for Ulster. They had that mental fortitude carried over from a week ago in the Stade Ernest Wallon to know that the game was not beyond them even going into the last few minutes and it was a simple strike move off the back of a scrum that set Luke Marshall through who was then able to recycle for Nick Williams to score.

It was poetry in motion. The move was slick, the recycle was rapid and Williams’ awareness to see the gap at the bottom of the ruck was top quality. Ulster may not have had a player on the field with the status that the likes of an O’Connell or an O’Driscoll would have, but they had something better: a united squad belief that they could still cross the line.

Once they did it was inevitable that Ulster would win, both because there were just three minutes left on the clock and also the fact that Connacht’s heads dropped as soon as the try was awarded.

It added that degree of professionalism to a dogged performance that is a very important win away from home in the league. Connacht spurned two kicks at goal earlier in the game and Ulster made them pay with the late blow, and they now sit fourth in the PRO12 table four points better off as opposed to just two and they have their mental belief to thank that that is the case.

And not only that, but the momentum continues to build. No, the performance was not perhaps up to the same standard as that of the two games against Toulouse, and the coaches and players are probably the first to admit that, but the win is just as important and as credible. Remember, that’s two unbeaten home records Ulster have broken in successive weeks, and this one was just as hard fought as the one in France.

It is crucial for Ulster to keep this momentum up, both for their own sakes and for the sake of Irish rugby.

With Leinster destined to miss the quarter-finals of the Champions’ Cup, and Munster more than likely joining them based on their current form, it is up to Ulster to fly the Irish flag alone in Europe. That means it will probably take two bonus point wins against Top14 basement dwellers Oyonnax and probably a losing bonus point away to Saracens as well to get there, and it will require their continued momentum to propel them to those three results.

On current form Ulster will make the quarter-finals handily. Unless Oyonnax pull one of the shocks of the year by sending out a full side for either game then a side of Ulster’s quality are more than capable of taking all ten points on offer, and armed with a stronger knowledge of their opponents and a more settled team they can give Saracens a real good game in London.

But their recent found form has been built on a strong squad ethic and a belief that all players can play their part.

With an injury list like Ulster’s, grinding out wins is a vital necessity as we face important games that will define where we are as a club heading into the New Year. It’s been a crucial part of both Leinster and Munster teams that have won trophies in the past and it is a sign that Ulster are building and becoming a team that know how to win ugly, and possibly a few trophies on top of that.

By its very definition, it isn’t pretty. But it is pretty effective.

SEASON'S CELEBRATIONS

As the festive season approaches, there is little goodwill on the island of Ireland.

Ulster’s brilliant double over Toulouse aside, last weekend’s round of Champions’ Cup fixtures just furthered the belief across Ireland that there is a widening gulf between the provinces and their counterparts from England and France with both Leinster and Munster losing at the hands of superior opponents in Toulon and Leicester.

Leinster find themselves in European wilderness – bottom of their pool after four rounds without a single win to their name. And it’s not for a lack of effort either, they put up brilliant efforts in both Bath and Toulon and they looked in relative control of Saturday’s reverse fixture against Toulon in the Aviva Stadium, however on all three occasions they fell just short of what was required of them.

Toulon are almost unplayable, even when out of form, as they are simply able to replace like for like when it comes to matches. What other side can replace Juan Smith with Mamuka Gorgodze? However Wasps proved that a disappointing Bath are easily beatable at the Rec if played correctly (they struggle to counter-act the power game) and that makes Leinster’s loss there all the harder to take.

In fact there is a genuine possibility that Leinster could end up whitewashed in this pool stage if they aren’t careful. Not to the detriment of their Pro12 hopes one should think, but if they cannot front up against Bath and Wasps, especially away in Coventry, then they will be on the receiving end of one of their worst ever pool performances in the modern era. Not exactly a positive reinforcement for Leo Cullen as a head coach.

Axel Foley isn’t faring much better either.

Armed with a fly-half who can’t hit a barn door or control a back line, Foley has to be sympathised with. Munster haven’t looked vastly inferior to Leicester in their two games against them and yet somehow they find themselves back in Limerick licking their wounds and without a point to show for their two skirmishes against the Tigers.

Munster are suffering from a lack of leadership more than anything else: while CJ Stander has stepped into the role admirably in Peter O’Mahony’s absence, they miss the Ireland flanker’s influence in the back row and what he brings to the team. On a bigger scale they miss Paul O’Connell’s legendary status in the second row, although of course there is little they can do about that. That is no slight on Mark Chisholm who has done well since his arrival from Bayonne, but the loss of O’Connell is now proving massive.

Unlike Leinster they do still stand a mathematical chance of making the quarter-finals – a bonus point win away to Treviso is more or a less a given these days and should they get their act together for the trip to Stade Francais in three weeks then they will be in with a shot of a best runner-up spot if they can then replicate that a week later at Thomond Park. But Munster now walk a very thin line regarding their Champions’ Cup hopes.

Unlike Ulster.

For the second week in a row it was a case of using the right tactics against Toulouse by the Ulster coaching staff and it paid off handsomely. Stuart McCloskey and Luke Marshall were once again magnificent as a centre pairing, Ruan Pienaar was a deserving man of the match as he controlled the game from scrum-half and his half-back partner Paddy Jackson showed a return to form again.

That does disservice to the rest of the team because, again, it was a remarkable performance by numbers 1 to 23. Perhaps Ulster’s success will be a shot in the arm for the rest of Irish rugby, especially when you look at Ulster’s injury list and how they’ve been able to overcome it and pull out those two results the last two weeks. Results that suddenly propel them from European oblivion back into European reckoning.

It doesn’t necessarily make them favourites to win the tournament, but in the knock-out stages anything is possible.

We’re back to Pro12 duty this weekend with a festive foray down to Galway on Boxing/St. Stephen’s Day, and it’s looking increasingly like it won’t be two full teams taking the pitch at 6pm – theirs due to injury, ours due to choice. There’ll be a danger to overlook the Pro12 in favour of the Champions’ Cup, and that is a danger that was Leinster’s downfall last season. While I am confident Ulster won’t fall foul of the same danger, there does need to be a focused mindset this weekend.

Merry Christmas one and all – and a happy St. Stephen’s Day!

BACKING IT UP

It’s time for Ulster to stop dreaming and start believing.

Before the game on Friday night if you’d asked anyone at the Kingspan Stadium if they really thought Ulster were going to triumph you’d probably have found very few who would respond positively. When you compared the two squads – the international stars of Toulouse compared to the injury ravaged Ulster team – there were very few areas for home fans to be positive. And yet by the end of the game everything had been turned on its head.

If that wasn’t a flawless performance then it was pretty close. In the build up to the game Les Kiss had put a lot of emphasis on shifting Toulouse back and forth across the pitch to tire out their big forwards – the Johnstons, Tekoris and Dusautoirs – and it was a tactic that worked wonders. No more than 15 minutes into the game some Toulouse players were already huffing and puffing and once the tries began to flow the heads dropped too.

What was even more impressive is that you can’t fault any player on the Ulster team for their effort in the victory. Where seasoned heads like Best, Pienaar and Trimble led from the front by example, it was the young players like McCall and O’Connor (whose performance makes you wonder where he’s been so far this season) who brought the performance together with stellar outings in the white shirt.

Man for man, Ulster were excellent.

And as I said, they must now start believing that the quarter-finals are not beyond them. Last year we picked up the five points at home to the Scarlets and then went out to Llanelli and left with nothing – this year we come off the back of one of our best ever European results and we must back it up otherwise it was worth nothing.

But this team is good enough to do it, and they have proved it time and time again. McCall, Best and Herbst have formed a front row that is strong enough to stand up to one of the strongest front rows in the Top14, Nick Williams looks to be hitting some fantastic form this season (sadly a little late for our liking) and our backs are lethal when they are given the ball to play with. When it all comes together, combined with the correct tactics, this team can be fantastic.

What a win on Sunday would do for our confidence and our quarter-final prospects. From what looked like European oblivion, hope has sprung eternal and there is suddenly a real chance that, if we can pull off one of the most remarkable double-header wins, we could actually reach the last eight. In the midst of Irish turmoil, Ulster would reign supreme.

And they would breathe life back into the Irish set-up.

After the Saracens defeat a month ago there was a lot of disappointment and Kiss and Best talked about how they knew that was not the true Ulster and it was a terrible night at the office. And based on what we witnessed on Friday night there is a sense that Ulster are getting close to what Kiss envisioned when he took over a few months ago.

Certainly if you look at the mindset currently in the Ulster camp as opposed to Munster and Leinster there is no comparison. Ulster are riding a personal high, while Munster fans are not confident in their team’s ability to get out of their pool after they were handed their Saracens-equivalent defeat by Leicester on Saturday night and Leinster are all but out after their loss in Toulon. Ironically it is Ulster who now probably have the best chance of qualifying for the latter stages of the tournament.

A lot has been made of the shortcomings of Irish rugby over the last few months, particularly the state of the provinces, but Connacht have gone a long way to prove that a homegrown team can still be a potent threat, while Ulster look to be putting up a good fight in Europe – and in a one-off game there is every chance that they could sneak an away win in the quarter-finals.

I’m not saying the IRFU’s problems have suddenly been alleviated by one good performance in Europe, but perhaps it suggests that things aren’t as bad as they seem. That said, let’s wait until the return leg at the Stade Ernest Wallon on Sunday before jumping to hasty conclusions – defeat there and we’re right back where we started.

European Oblivion.