He decided to change careers. Giving up on Rugby (for now anyway) Despite what some of us may think, there actually IS more to life than Rugby.
He has gone to work in the States in some Consultancy company and hopes to do an MBA over there. Says he may come back to rugby. Apparently he had quite a few rugby offers.
I think Ulster are stronger this season. Last season was a mess alright in terms of injuries, Afoa going awol, falling out with Anscombe etc. They've more depth this season.
The Anathemata wrote:Pro12 is very much going the way of the SPL - ie getting progressively weaker each year.
Leinster should walk away with the league, but will struggle beyond the QFs in Europe.
Munster may well get blitzed in the opening few months due to the lack of frontline backup at 2, 9, 12, 13 and 15.
Ulster are a mess at the moment and I expect Connacht to continue their long tradition of wasting much needed provincial funds.
Most teams are getting stronger each year and now the Welsh have sorted things out we can expect them all to improve from next season on if not this season.
ceemec wrote:That's putting a pretty generous slant on proceedings, rooster. Ulster aren't a mess but they certainly aren't in a better position than they were this time last season.
The pack is undoubtedly weaker than it was. Muller, Court and Afoa might have been tired and not playing to the level they once were but Franco VDM, Herbst and Ruadhri Murphy are not in the same bracket as them.
It really is anyone's guess how things work out off the field. Anscombe might not have been well liked but at least he was with the team. It's a pretty disjointed situation currently in Ulster.
Afoa was average when he played last season, Muller was half Crocker but gave it all he had, Black had more or less taken over from Court, perhaps not as good in the loose but better in the scrum, Herbst looks fine and destructive, Franco VDM could well be as good a leader as Muller.
Anscombe was a Muppet
ceemec wrote:That's putting a pretty generous slant on proceedings, rooster. Ulster aren't a mess but they certainly aren't in a better position than they were this time last season.
The pack is undoubtedly weaker than it was. Muller, Court and Afoa might have been tired and not playing to the level they once were but Franco VDM, Herbst and Ruadhri Murphy are not in the same bracket as them.
It really is anyone's guess how things work out off the field. Anscombe might not have been well liked but at least he was with the team. It's a pretty disjointed situation currently in Ulster.
Afoa was average when he played last season, Muller was half Crocker but gave it all he had, Black had more or less taken over from Court, perhaps not as good in the loose but better in the scrum, Herbst looks fine and destructive, Franco VDM could well be as good a leader as Muller.
Anscombe was a Muppet
Not trying to be facetious, rooster, but I could be president (then I'd show you all).
If VDM fills the leadership void left by Muller then fantastic but that's a huge ask for him. Muller captained his country in big test matches and Ulster for a few years. VDM has filled in as captain for his club. There's a step up there and a large element of unknown.
Court may have been winding down but he was still selected to start in all but one of the HEC games. Afoa was a non entity last season so anything is better than him, I suppose, but a replacement will almost guaranteed to be a step down on him from the first couple of seasons he had.
It's probably a bit of a wait and see job but I would really struggle to see how Ulster would be in as good shape going into this season as they were last. They've also lost a couple of guys around the camp like Ferris and Wallace who would have had a positive impact. Sean Doyle departed despite Ulster wanting to retain him also. Things are very much up in the air with the side.
I will concede on the leadership side of Muller but as far as physicality around the pitch goes VDM looks pretty useful. Court started the HEC matches because in a couple of them he was actually the only option due to injury of Black.
Front row battle will be pretty interesting tomorrow and perhaps we will have a better idea about it
One man's mess is another man's 'disjointed situation' (Ceemac).
The loss of the coach, DOR, frontline props, and heartbeat (Ferris, Wallace and Muller) is massive, as is losing the likes of Doyle and McKinney - who I thought were two of your best players at the back-end of the season. The props you've brought in are pretty poor, and the guys in situ either untested at HEC level or consistent sick-notes.
I think Ulster could really struggle this season. The one thing in their favour is how average the completion is for the play-off positions.
I think rooster is very much of a mind that the glass is half full. I wouldn't be as optimistic but that's not to say things wont go well for Ulster.
On the flip side of those positives mentioned, a serious turnover of players and loss of leadership is difficult for any side to deal with. Added to that is that the man in charge may only be there on a temporary basis and is in his first proper head coach role, nobody has a clue how he'll do with that. Regardless of Cave's injury I think they're likely to lose their (and one of Europe's) best 15 so that he can be slightly above average in the centre for many games. Even if its limited to some league games, that will affect the whole cohesion of the backline in both competitions. Olding is a massive player for them but has missed an entire season, who knows how long it'll take him to get back to where he was? Fingers crossed it'll be very soon but there's got to be a question mark. Pienaar will be missing for a good chunk of the season and the reserve 9s are all average.
That's a lot that could go wrong. There are plenty of positives, I'm in no way worried about them, but in a better place than last season? Impossible to tell yet. Actually one more good thing that hasn't been mentioned is that Olding playing 12 tomorrow is good news for them. Hated the rumours about him moving to 15 and hopefully they'll prove to be untrue. Himself and Jackson will dovetail very nicely regardless of who's at 9. Hopefully Bowe will be a different player to the one we saw once he got injured last season.
Interesting comments from Tom Court yesterday. While I'm not a fan of Anscombe and there were too many reports of disharmony for it not to be true, Court's comments suggest there may have been something of a coup among players to oust him due to their time spent with Schmidt last season:
“I wasn’t somebody that got asked whether Mark should stay or go. I got on with Mark very well on a personal level. Whether boys had issues with his coaching ability or whether it was little details… the problem senior players in Ireland have got [is] they’re comparing everyone to Joe Schmidt now.
ceemec wrote:Interesting comments from Tom Court yesterday. While I'm not a fan of Anscombe and there were too many reports of disharmony for it not to be true, Court's comments suggest there may have been something of a coup among players to oust him due to their time spent with Schmidt last season:
“I wasn’t somebody that got asked whether Mark should stay or go. I got on with Mark very well on a personal level. Whether boys had issues with his coaching ability or whether it was little details… the problem senior players in Ireland have got [is] they’re comparing everyone to Joe Schmidt now.
Anscombe was a dead man walking after our Munster away match which the seconds won, there was player discontent back previous season and a lot of people were surprised he got a year added to his contract but there are various theories on what happened there as well.
Anyway back to PRO12 and it will be interesting to see if the Welsh can agree for a few weeks and whether Zebre can oust Treviso as the top Italian team, I reckon they will and also put pressure on in the bottom half of the table.
Glasgow Cardiff game is turning into a proper humping.
12-33 Glasgow. It was 12-13, Glasgow with a player in the bin. Matawalu scored an intercept and then followed up with another.
They haven't looked as good as they did last week and their scrum was getting splintered.
Ruddock's tackle stats consistently too low for me to be taken seriously as a Six Nations blindside..... Ruddock's defensive stats don't stack up. - All Blacks Nil, Jan 15th, 2014
England A 8 - 14 Ireland A, 25th Jan 2014 Ruddock(c) 19/2 Tackles
And so it ended. Game was in the balance around 50mins. Glasgow got a man binned, Cardiff kicked the peno to make it 12-13 then switched off, conceding 10 with a man up. Glasgow weren't great and their tries were all breakways/turnovers. Early days but can't see Cardiff troubling the top 4.
Glasgow need to get a replacement TH for Murray. They were getting destroyed in the scrum before the yellow. Eventually they'll come up against a quality team on a sunday who will really punish them for it.
Ruddock's tackle stats consistently too low for me to be taken seriously as a Six Nations blindside..... Ruddock's defensive stats don't stack up. - All Blacks Nil, Jan 15th, 2014
England A 8 - 14 Ireland A, 25th Jan 2014 Ruddock(c) 19/2 Tackles
paddyor wrote:And so it ended. Game was in the balance around 50mins. Glasgow got a man binned, Cardiff kicked the peno to make it 12-13 then switched off, conceding 10 with a man up. Glasgow weren't great and their tries were all breakways/turnovers. Early days but can't see Cardiff troubling the top 4.
Glasgow need to get a replacement TH for Murray. They were getting destroyed in the scrum before the yellow. Eventually they'll come up against a quality team on a sunday who will really punish them for it.
DeKlerk was at TH, Murray wont play on Sundays
Retired from babbling. Can be found on twittter @okeeffesimon
