Ulster 2017 - 2018

[neiliog93]

Marsh on loan and give McPhillips a good run, with Nelson, Luke Marshall and Cooney all potential emergency third choices (until Herron comes back in). Peter Lydon is doing well with Ealing Trailfinders, possibly more of a 15 than a 10, but could be an option next season if they desperately need depth and can't get the right NIQ player (always more difficult in the season before a RWC).

[TerenureJim]

At this stage if Rog was fit/not NZ bound get him to do a three month stint of old dog/player coach he'd be perfect.

That or tempt Johnny W out of verdant pastures.

[rooster]

Marsh on loan and give McPhillips a good run, with Nelson, Luke Marshall and Cooney all potential emergency third choices (until Herron comes back in). Peter Lydon is doing well with Ealing Trailfinders, possibly more of a 15 than a 10, but could be an option next season if they desperately need depth and can't get the right NIQ player (always more difficult in the season before a RWC).

McPhilips and Lowry are 2 decent prospects as far as Herron and Nelson go we have better 10's in some of the 2A clubs than them at 10 .

As for a NIQ 10 it is debatable if IRFU would sanction that though probably depends on the outcome of Jackson which could trail on a bit and allegedly already cost us the chance of a NIQ 10 for next season already due to player wanting an answer before everyone else was sorted out for next season.

[BlueBlue]

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/ ... -1.3366196

[Dave Cahill]

posting links to articles behind paywalls makes baby jesus cry

[BlueBlue]

posting links to articles behind paywalls makes baby jesus cry

Sorry.

[rooster]

posting links to articles behind paywalls makes baby jesus cry

Not only that it takes up resources on the Internet with people clicking the link and then going "feck"

[rooster]

Anyway we are no further on in the status of Jackson as trial postponed to a later date.
Time Ulster made a decision on what they are doing for a 10 for next season.

[simonokeeffe]

Sure you get 10 free IT articles a week and at least 10 more in private browsing, per device

[Dave Cahill]

Sure you get 10 free IT articles a week and at least 10 more in private browsing, per device

Not premium articles you don't

[BlueBlue]

I don't think Jackson or Olding will stay in Belfast after this, one way or another.

[BlueBlue]

The gist of D'Arcy's article was that Ulster need to stop taking short cuts like sacking coaches (he gave the example of Cheika losing to Edinburgh in 2008, and winning 1st HCup in 2009), build from within, academy, structures,culture and players rather than more quick fixes by buying in players.

His point is Ulster need to define who they are, their goals and how they are going to get there as an organisation - commit to it, boardroom / coaches / players and set a time frame for it to happen. Rather than buy-in and sack, knee jerk reactions that don't solve the problem, but bring you back to square one, where you start all over again. The definition of insanity.

that sounds like a 3 to 5 years plan.

[simonokeeffe]

Sure you get 10 free IT articles a week and at least 10 more in private browsing, per device

Not premium articles you don't

B@lls

Thought that was the Ferris article I read earlier

Calling Ulster the Arsenal of rugby was a good analogy

[blockhead]

Pffft, they wish they were like Arsenal. More like Leeds

[simonokeeffe]

Pffft, they wish they were like Arsenal. More like Leeds

Leeds had more Irish born players

[Lar]

For those behind paywalls:

The powers that be in Ulster find themselves on familiar territory. The previous solution – lop off the coach’s head – has brought them back around to the same problem.

What’s the definition of insanity, again?

Escaping this Ravenhill – sorry, Kingspan – quagmire requires a deeper thought process. Hopefully they know this.

I’m not privy to Ulster team meetings or training, obviously, but I know the calibre of their coaches. I worked with Les Kiss with Ireland and Jono Gibbes in Leinster. I also toured New Zealand with Dwayne Peel in 2005.

When Ulster have performed this season I have seen improvements in their attack from this time last year. That’s a combination of good coaching and Christian Lealiifano playing flat to the line.

The overriding problem does not lie with the coaches. A club begins in its academy and ends in the boardroom.

An understandably frustrated Stephen Ferris says Ulster have been building for 12 years, and while Fez has a point, how many cycles or false dawns have occurred?

Too many.

They keep journeying a certain distance with a specific plan only to make sudden directional change.

Decisions have come from the top down, from chief executive Shane Logan (who was appointed in 2009), that have led to an undercurrent of discontent emanating from supporters and critics alike.

David Humphreys – Ulster’s legendary outhalf who led them to a European title in 1999 – leaving the director of rugby post to join Gloucester in 2014 was an indictment of Logan’s governance. The foreign coach – Mark Anscombe after Matty Williams – didn’t work out. Those born into Ulster rugby – Mark McCall and Brian McLaughlin – some confidently state in hindsight, were not given enough time.

Each decision has led Ulster to where they now reside: out of the Champions Cup at the Pool stages, yet again, and blatantly lacking the necessary depth of talent in every position.

Outhalf problems are glaring. Stephen Donald’s failed medical can become a blessing in disguise if they fully support Johnny McPhillips. It’s unfair to rush a young player into the professional spotlight but there’s little alternative.

This is what happens in a sports club with flawed succession planning. Sometimes they stumble across a gem, mostly they become badly exposed.

It looks as if there will be eight Leinster produced players and a Cork man on the Ulster roster next season. They currently have eight South Africans, three of whom are Irish-qualified.

Let’s see how head coach succession planning, or lack thereof, brought Ulster to Kiss and Gibbes.

Home-made and foreign coaches have had equal opportunity since McCall, current Saracens director of rugby, left in November 2007. In 2009, Matt Williams was replaced by Humphreys who appointed ex-Ulster players, Neil Doak and Jeremy Davidson, as assistants to head coach Brian McLaughlin.

Entering the 2012 Heineken Cup final, against Leinster at Twickenham, everyone knew McLaughlin was being replaced that summer by Anscombe.

The next two seasons were peak Ulster in the modern era with their downward spiral – a word used by Kiss over Christmas – dating back to one moment: Jared Payne’s red card four minutes into the 2014 Heineken Cup quarter-final against Saracens in Belfast. It remains a harsh and hugely costly call by referee Jerome Garces and still feels like a watershed moment for the province.

Ulster were stacked with international and local quality: Johann Muller was a towering captain, John Afoa a recent All Black tighthead, Nick Williams broke the gainline at will and Ruan Pienaar directed affairs from scrumhalf with Stephen Ferris, Rory Best, Tommy Bowe and a young Iain Henderson providing the tools needed to capture a European title.

That team disintegrated when Humphreys joined Gloucester – taking Afoa with him – as Muller and Ferris retired. Anscombe was sacked and temporarily replaced by Kiss, who only fully took over after the 2015 World Cup, as Doak ran the squad in his absence.

This season Kiss replaced Doak and Allen Clarke with Gibbes and Peel. That’s almost constant upheaval with plenty more promised from the playing panel.

Imagine the sliding doors scenario of Leinster removing Michael Cheika after defeat in Edinburgh meant we failed to get out of our Pool in 2008.

Plummeting season ticket sales could have swayed the Leinster decision-makers but instead they trusted the man they recruited. That was Cheika’s third season in charge. Come May 2009 we won the Heineken Cup for the first time. Nobody predicted the influence of Rocky Elsom and Johnny Sexton but the strategic vision – from the academy to boardroom – allowed us to build upon the initial success.

Kiss has yet to complete a second full season at the helm. There is no magic switch to solve deep-rooted problems.

When the IRFU rejected Ulster’s and Kiss’s appeals to keep Pienaar a disastrous season seemed guaranteed, especially when Marcell Coetzee and Payne were crocked while no internationally recognised props were signed, but John Cooney has proved a goal-kicking revelation in the number nine jersey.

Hope is not lost.

We are entering a fascinating period in Ulster rugby history. If they can drown out external wailing and focus on the job at hand then all previous failings can be avoided.

Big “if” considering their unclear strategic planning.

Cooney replacing Pienaar proves there will be life after Charles Piutau and Bowe. Jacob Stockdale is lighting that pathway.

But the pack, mainly the tight five, is a glaring weakness. They are over reliant on Best and Henderson. Ideally, Marty Moore will arrive from Wasps this summer in the best shape of his life while Jordi Murphy journey’s north from Dublin with an action-speaks-louder-than-words attitude to help feed a much-needed cultural renaissance.

They also need at least one more international standard lock and prop.

I’m sure this Ulster squad are a tight-knit group but sometimes being best of pals can actually hinder the building of a strong culture. I played in really happy teams with nobody rocking the boat and we won nothing. You can dislike a guy and still put your body on the line for him. Tension, when harnessed correctly, lays the platform for everyone to feel equal. Honest feedback is essential for a successful culture.

Many people – the loudest fans and media voices – are demanding the silver bullet solution. But sacking the coach hasn’t worked. It isn’t possible to separate the failings of the academy structures (and grassroots talent ID systems) and the senior team.

Perhaps Ulster need fresh eyes. A deep thinker on sporting values. I’d be fascinated to read what Jim McGuinness thinks about the strategic planning of underage Ulster structures. Bring all that GAA and professional soccer knowledge into rugby.

I hope Les Kiss is afforded the opportunity to see out his vision; to hell with this season – it’s already a failure – and retrain focus on small victories such as winning at home in style.

Give the people what they want where possible. We know from the La Rochelle game that the emotive performance still exists in Belfast. But that should be the standard every time they tog out at home.

The pursuit of excellence does not happen by chance. Nobody likes being told they aren’t doing something right but winners understand the value of feedback and are open to their failings because they want to get better.

Humility is required.

Enormous knowledge
The overriding question: do the people in charge have the stomach to weather this storm or will they seek another quick fix?

Block out the noise. Believe you have selected the right men for the job. Les Kiss understands defence and how to plant the seeds for a self-sustaining team culture. Ireland won a Grand Slam and two Six Nations titles – under different head coaches – with Les working in the background. Jono is a natural born leader and he can only have brought enormous knowledge to Ulster from his Clermont experience.

There is a moment with every team when a flip of a coin dictates their fate. That’s just sport. It happened to Ulster in April 2014 when Payne was ball watching as Alex Goode leaped above him, smashing his hip into Payne’s head and crashing to earth, head first.

They have yet to recover and I expect it to get worse before the dawn.

The process only truly starts when everyone is on the same page. Ask all the stakeholders in Ulster rugby – chief executive, coaches, players, fans – about their expectations for the senior team.

Now ask everyone what is stopping them turning expectation into reality. If the management, coaches and players are not aligned, if they can’t live by the same values, then the same problems will remain unsolved.

[rooster]

One thing I will say about that all is Kiss is in no way comparable to Cheika, what we wouldn't give for a no bull shitting type character like Chieka to come in and do a top down clear out.

[BlueBlue]

One thing I will say about that all is Kiss is in no way comparable to Cheika, what we wouldn't give for a no bull shitting type character like Chieka to come in and do a top down clear out.

You have one, Les Kiss hired him. His name is Jonno Gibbs, I suspect if he starts a clean out, the board level will panic due to various pressures, fold, fire coaches, hire new coaches, start merry go round and be shocked when they end up at the same place. I think Ulster players like the cushy number they have, they don't want coaches who demand things, that would be hard work.

I really don't think the problem is coaches.

[rooster]

One thing I will say about that all is Kiss is in no way comparable to Cheika, what we wouldn't give for a no bull shitting type character like Chieka to come in and do a top down clear out.

You have one, Les Kiss hired him. His name is Jonno Gibbs, I suspect if he starts a clean out, the board level will panic due to various pressures, fold, fire coaches, hire new coaches, start merry go round and be shocked when they end up at the same place. I think Ulster players like the cushy number they have, they don't want coaches who demand things, that would be hard work.

I really don't think the problem is coaches.

No you are right it goes much deeper than Kiss, there is lack of accountability the whole way through the organisation that blame is hard to appropriate to the correct people, Kiss though is part of the problems. When Humphs left then we finished up after a while with Logan and Kiss in control as CEO and DOR but neither were capable of doing all of the work which both positions entail hence Cunningham had to be brought in to sort out player contracts etc. Now for a start Logan when he put forward Kiss for the DOR job should have realised they were a combination lacking skills but it was not until pressure was put on re players contracts not signed etc that the whole thing came to a head.

[Grumpy Old Man]

Bowe is a one-off — the Monaghan Catholic who used to smile to himself at some of the no-surrenderings in the Ulster team-room, in the days when they had a Union Jack on the wall;

He sees more of a malaise, more discomfort at the heart of the club, Ulster further from their cultural moorings than they have ever been and still drifting.

Clearly hurting he says Ulster sometimes looks very Afrikaans and if not that a little blue. Like the Leinster academy. He says many of the players are Irish qualified but not from the red-bricked heartland.

He says Sean Reidy is from New Zealand, Wiehann Herbst from South Africa, Kieran Treadwell is English, Alan O’Connor and John Cooney are from Leinster and Christian Lealiifano from Australia. He could go on.

“You walk into the Kingspan Stadium and people are starting to talk about watching South Africa’s B team instead of watching an Ulster team,” he says.

“All the Leinster academy seems to be in the Ulster academy. Or, sorry, on the Ulster team.”

The first quote is from Peter O'Reillys piece on Tommy Bowe last Sunday. The second is from the Stephen Ferris article in the Irish Times yesterday.

Does Stephen hanker for the day when Ulster was a team of Davy Tweed types. Or maybe he's just not a fan of Evangelical Christianity.