Connacht -v- Ulster - Saturday 21/9/2013 KO 6:45

Hagz

connemara man wrote: »

I got caught up at the match, but can I get an unbiased review if the refs performance? I felt he was harsh at times.

I thought he had a good game. He made a couple stinkers in the opening quarter. One serious brain-fart as he stared at Nathan White throwing the ball about 2 metres forward. But after that I thought he managed the game well.

irishbucsfan

Ref was good.

its_phil

No complaints on ref. One of the better performances in a long time. He managed the scrums excellently too.

its_phil

No complaints on ref. One of the better performances in a long time. He managed the scrums excellently too.

Not happy with the second half (the wind doing a 180 didn't help) but I am happy with the direction we are going in under Lam. I think Griffin showed he has the quality to become a 12, while Henshaw will get better with more time at 13. Healy was impressive again. Heenan is a good player too. White and Wilkinson deserve massive slaps on the back.

There's negatives but I'm not arsed. They are obvious for anyone to see.

Henderson is a different specimen.

I'd kill to have Keatley back.

durkadurka

There was a comment earlier re an interview with ulster mngt which suggested it wasn't certain that Ruan would be back THIS season.

Is there any more on this?

connemara man

Thanks when I was there I felt he was pinging the second man in for not releasing (both sides) and I felt Ulster got away with more at the breakdown, I will admit to having green blinkers on tho,

It was a poor game to watch the atmosphere died in the last 20 mins. Just disappointing.

connemara man

Thanks when I was there I felt he was pinging the second man in for not releasing (both sides) and I felt Ulster got away with more at the breakdown, I will admit to having green blinkers on tho,

It was a poor game to watch the atmosphere died in the last 20 mins. Just disappointing.

Borders no.2

Connacht were atrocious at the breakdown. All the Ulster penalties at the breakdown looked fine to me and in fairness I think he could have given one or two more.

I hope you are right its phil but I'm very worried with the start we have made to the season. Far more negatives than positives coming out of the first 3 games and pre-season imo. If Harris-Wright and Faloon are out for extended periods that will weaken us even further.

Phoeey

Anyone else think Henshaw looks more like a 12 than a 13 in the lines he takes?

Hagz

Hmm possibly. But you wouldn't want to keep McSharry out of the team. In my opinion he needs to work on his passing. I see him throwing floated passes quite often. I still think his best position is in the centre. If he keeps getting more game-time there, he'll improve.

shuffol

For the first 20 mins of the 2nd half Connacht didnt bother contesting the breakdown. I honestly think Parks is a poor player at this level now, hope they give Ronaldson an opportunity to see if he's up to it, one thing that struck me yesterday was his physicality in contact and how he was always looking to get his hands free. If players get on the same wavelength as him he could be a threat.

Hagz

shuffol wrote: »

one thing that struck me yesterday was his physicality in contact and how he was always looking to get his hands free. If players get on the same wavelength as him he could be a threat.

That's exactly what I was thinking. Having one of McSharry or Henshaw running off him would be effective.

ouncer

While the back line can be changed it wouldn't have mattered in the end. To use the back line you have to have posession and for much of the game posession was with ulster. Simply cannot complain about the ref, in fact I thought he was excellent. You could hear him clearly telling players what to do throughout the game and he only penalised when players didn't listen or obvious penalties were there to be awarded. As ever griffin was excellent, Robbie played OK, Healy is simply a find, Carr looks great going forward but his biggest weakness is his defense. Gavin was Gavin, catch a ball do a dummy and run into the ulster cover. However this game really showed up his lack of anything original. The ulster cover killed him simply because nobody honestly believes that he would ever pass the ball once he got possession.

Said it before but I do think toh at full back, poolman at 14 Healy at 11 would really be a good combination. All have proved they can both defend and attack. and at least our back line would show originality. I just wish that on one occasion Gavin would have caught a ball and fed it to Healy who at least might have done something with it. Hence my case for toh at full back.

All that aside there are other problems that even more pressing with the Connacht team. While I am a big fan of marmion once again he reminded me of frank Murphy. This damm insistence that the ball has to be lifted from the scrum and handed to him on a platter. If you looked at Marshall in comparison he was in there digging the ball out of the scrum. My biggest problem with this Marmion play is that it requires one of the players in the back of the scrum to focus on collecting the ball rather than taking the strain in the scrum itself. This has a really negative effect on the stability of the connacht scrum and its about time Marion copped on to this fact.

The lineout killed us totally. But take the points about how Marmion plays the scrum, how Gavin put is in trouble rather than allowed us to break lines and you have a few ideas on how the team can move forward. Truth is I would rather watch a game which was inventive but lost rather than a game like I witnessed last night

jamiedav2011

Only dipped in and out of this game, what were people's thoughts on Heenan & Clarke?

Heenan looked good to me, Clarke a bit off the pace?

blackhound

jamiedav2011 wrote: »

Only dipped in and out of this game, what were people's thoughts on Heenan & Clarke?

Heenan looked good to me, Clarke a bit off the pace?

You pretty much got it in one. Have been very impressed with Heenan so far, looks like a great signing.

porterbelly

Clarke clearly wasn't fully fit. Don't think he should have played

ouncer

ouncer wrote: »

While the back line can be changed it wouldn't have mattered in the end. To use the back line you have to have posession and for much of the game posession was with ulster. Simply cannot complain about the ref, in fact I thought he was excellent. You could hear him clearly telling players what to do throughout the game and he only penalised when players didn't listen or obvious penalties were there to be awarded. As ever griffin was excellent, Robbie played OK, Healy is simply a find, Carr looks great going forward but his biggest weakness is his defense. Gavin was Gavin, catch a ball do a dummy and run into the ulster cover. However this game really showed up his lack of anything original. The ulster cover killed him simply because nobody honestly believes that he would ever pass the ball once he got possession.

Said it before but I do think toh at full back, poolman at 14 Healy at 11 would really be a good combination. All have proved they can both defend and attack. and at least our back line would show originality. I just wish that on one occasion Gavin would have caught a ball and fed it to Healy who at least might have done something with it. Hence my case for toh at full back.

All that aside there are other problems that even more pressing with the Connacht team. While I am a big fan of marmion once again he reminded me of frank Murphy. This damm insistence that the ball has to be lifted from the scrum and handed to him on a platter. If you looked at Marshall in comparison he was in there digging the ball out of the scrum. My biggest problem with this Marmion play is that it requires one of the players in the back of the scrum to focus on collecting the ball rather than taking the strain in the scrum itself. This has a really negative effect on the stability of the connacht scrum and its about time Marion copped on to this fact.

The lineout killed us totally. But take the points about how Marmion plays the scrum, how Gavin put is in trouble rather than allowed us to break lines and you have a few ideas on how the team can move forward. Truth is I would rather watch a game which was inventive but lost rather than a game like I witnessed last night

Funny or not in retrospect have come to the conclusion that the reason henshaw annoyed me so much is that he tried to play a mirror image of Gavin's game style. He can hardly be blamed for that but it was so annoying to see a Gavin replica it got my blood boiling. I appreciate the years of service Gavin has put into the game but in reality the game has moved on and he has not. To see Robbie performing the same plays, which is understandable, as this is what his peer did, was bothersome. He is a kid and that is the guidance he got. Its good to see him at centre where there is no such restrictions on the way he plays and you can see his game has already moved on leaps and bounds. So to those I have offended on the forum, and Robbie in particular, I have no doubt that you will be a star.

bilston

Finally watched the match so to give a bit of Ulster perspective I was just relieved that Ulster won, I'd have taken a 3-0 win to be honest, anything to stop the rot. Hopefully we've learnt from last year and we will be peaking at the right moment of the season this time round. For example it's interesting that last season we had I think four pre season games and this year we had just two. Anyway you can see one or two things slowly coming together but it's still a long way from the heights of the last campaign.

Jackson deserves credit for the way he came back in the second half to deliver a very good performance and even in the first half when he was missing kicks at both goal and to touch he was at least attacking the gainline a lot more and as ever his defence was more from the Sexton school of out half defence than the Humphreys brothers or ROG. He is inconsistant but that's hardly a shock for a 21 year old fky half.

Luke Marshall had his moments, always getting over the gainline and while the Connacht defence was all at sea for his try making break he still showed a lot of pace after he cleared the defensive line. Payne showed some nice touches especially for Allen's try. Talking of which the back who I was most pleased about was Michael Allen, he doesn't get a lot of headlines but he is a very good player at this level, we'll see if he can go any further. Paul Marshall had a good second half.

Wilson had a tidy game and for me he should be starting at No.8 ahead of Williams. However there is no doubt about the standout performer and that was Iain Henderson. We still don't know his position, it sounds like Anscombe wants to play him more in the 'row' but that Henderson and perhaps Ireland see him more as a 6. To be honest I would have thought it would have been the other way round but what do I know!

As for Connacht while I admit I don't watch them that often that's the best I've seen Eoin Griffin play in a while and I was impressed by Healy on the wing.

Anyway with Treviso at home up next for Ulster (no easy task) hopefully we can hit a bit of form going into the HEC.

shuffol

bilston wrote: »

Finally watched the match so to give a bit of Ulster perspective I was just relieved that Ulster won, I'd have taken a 3-0 win to be honest, anything to stop the rot. Hopefully we've learnt from last year and we will be peaking at the right moment of the season this time round. For example it's interesting that last season we had I think four pre season games and this year we had just two. Anyway you can see one or two things slowly coming together but it's still a long way from the heights of the last campaign.

Jackson deserves credit for the way he came back in the second half to deliver a very good performance and even in the first half when he was missing kicks at both goal and to touch he was at least attacking the gainline a lot more and as ever his defence was more from the Sexton school of out half defence than the Humphreys brothers or ROG. He is inconsistant but that's hardly a shock for a 21 year old fky half.

Luke Marshall had his moments, always getting over the gainline and while the Connacht defence was all at sea for his try making break he still showed a lot of pace after he cleared the defensive line. Payne showed some nice touches especially for Allen's try. Talking of which the back who I was most pleased about was Michael Allen, he doesn't get a lot of headlines but he is a very good player at this level, we'll see if he can go any further. Paul Marshall had a good second half.

Wilson had a tidy game and for me he should be starting at No.8 ahead of Williams. However there is no doubt about the standout performer and that was Iain Henderson. We still don't know his position, it sounds like Anscombe wants to play him more in the 'row' but that Henderson and perhaps Ireland see him more as a 6. To be honest I would have thought it would have been the other way round but what do I know!

As for Connacht while I admit I don't watch them that often that's the best I've seen Eoin Griffin play in a while and I was impressed by Healy on the wing.

Anyway with Treviso at home up next for Ulster (no easy task) hopefully we can hit a bit of form going into the HEC.

Hopefully Marshall gets an extended run without injury, he's an incredibly complete footballer, his breakdown work isnt far off BOD's even at this early stage in his career.