'It doesn't matter who we are, we know no-one will give us a chance against Leinster'
They were already going to be the underdogs no matter how they beat Edinburgh in the Guinness PRO14 semi-final at Murrayfield, but given the way they did do it Dan McFarland’s team should be even less burdened by expectation in Saturday’s final at Aviva Stadium.
While there was a bit of deja vu about the 13-3 Leinster win over Munster on Friday, a sameness which appears to have prompted some unsheathing of the knives of those critics not crazy about the losing team’s South African coach Johann van Graan, the Ulster win over Edinburgh was a cracker that reached a dramatic conclusion.
Down 12 points at two separate junctures of the second half, and making so many mistakes that winning seemed nothing more than an elusive pipe-dream, Ulster came back from the dead to win 22-19 with a pressure penalty kick from replacement flyhalf Ian Madigan with the last act of the game. It was a cruel way for Edinburgh to bow out of their first PRO14 final as they looked like they were bossing the game halfway through the second half, but for Ulster it was a lifeline and an opportunity to go for broke in the final.
“It doesn’t matter who we are, we know no-one will give us a chance against Leinster,” said McFarland of Saturday’s all Irish final at Aviva Stadium.
“But we will prepare properly, we’ll come up with a game plan we hope will work and we’ll give it a shot. I wouldn’t say I was confident at 12 points down, not the way we were playing up until that point. We had made a lot of mistakes. We hadn’t played particularly well.”
He’s right about that. Ulster were quite poor for long periods of the game, with any promising build-ups on attack invariably being thwarted by handling errors. But that’s the point – they were poor and they won, and they were pretty impressive once they did have the momentum with them in the last quarter.
Having been pretty unspectacular in the two league games they played after coming back from the coronavirus intervention, it could possibly be argued that Ulster have finally found some form. And winning a game like the one at Murrayfield, where you are up against it and come back to win against the odds, always provides a jolt of confidence for those who prevail.
Ian Madigan doing @Ian_madigan things #EDIvULS #PRO14pic.twitter.com/cceW2dmQFb
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) September 5, 2020
They know they will be up against it at Aviva, but then they were up against it going to Edinburgh given the historical narrative that has developed around play-off games in PRO14 – unless you are Scarlets, you don’t win an away semi-final! Well, Ulster have changed that, and having overcome the odds once they will give themselves a chance of doing it again.
For both losers this weekend it would be easy to apportion individual blame, but neither of the vanquished coaches were eager to do that.
JJ Hanrahan has been so good with the boot this season that he finished the league phase of the competition with a 90 percent success rate at posts for Munster, yet in the semi-final he missed two relatively easy kicks that, had they been successful, could have had a massive change on the game.
“Yeah, look, they were crucial. We had limited opportunities in a semi-final and we didn’t convert them,” said Van Graan in response to the inevitable post-match question about Hanrahan’s misses.
“But, you know, we as a group, we win together and we lose together. We’ll take those penalties as a group. I thought we built a lot of pressure between the 50th and 65th minutes, and then we didn’t convert those chances. Leinster went down the other side of the pitch and went up 13-3. We had a chance after that, in the 77th minute, to get a maul try but Leinster stopped it.”
As disconsolate as Hanrahan was after the final whistle in Dublin so was Edinburgh’s reserve hooker Mike Willemse after the Murrayfield game. It was Willemse’s knock down of the ball as Ulster launched one final attack with just over a minute to go that gave away the penalty that Madigan kicked to break the home team’s hearts.
For coach Richard Cockerill, however, it wasn’t individual error that was to blame, he just felt the team wasn’t good enough and got what it deserved.
“It’s disappointing when you are 19-7 ahead. We didn’t control the game. All credit to Ulster, it’s all of our own making, we should have made better decisions and we should have executed better. It’s not good enough from us,” said the former England hooker.
“In these games it’s the little things which make the difference and some of our players clearly don’t understand what that looks like. We’ve got international Test players with Scotland and they should know better. We’ve had enough opportunities to learn and we didn’t deliver. It’s got to improve and quickly.”
PRO14 SA
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Should've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
19 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
19 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
9 Go to commentsYes Sir! Surprising, just like Fraser would also have escaped sanction if he was a few inches lower, even if it was by accident that he missed! Has there really been talk about those sanctions or is this just sensational journalism? I stopped reading, so might have missed any notations.
9 Go to commentsAI is only as good as the information put in, the nuances of the sport, what you see out the corner of the eye, how you sum up in a split second the situation, yes the AI is a tool but will not help win games, more likely contribute to a loss, Rugby Players are not robots, all AI can do if offer a solution not the solution. AI will effect many sports, help train better golfers etc.
45 Go to commentsIt couldn’t have been Ryan Crotty. He wasn’t selected in either World Cup side - they chose Money Bill instead. And Money Bill only cared about himself, and that manager he had, not the team.
28 Go to commentsYawn 🥱 nobody would give a hoot about this new trophy. End of the day we just have to beat Ireland and NZ this year then they can finally shut up 🤐
19 Go to commentsTalking bout Ryan Crotty? Heard Crotty say in a interview once that SBW doesen't care about the team . He went on to say that whenever they lost a big game, SBW would be happy as if nothing happened, according to him someone who cares would look down.. Personally I think Crotty is in the wrong, not for feeling gutted but for expecting others 2 be like him… I have been a bad loser forever as it matters so much to me but good on you SBW for being able to see the bigger picture….
28 Go to commentsThis sounds like a WWE idea so Americans can also get excited about rugby, RUGBY NEEDS A INTERNATIONAL CALENDER .. The rugby Championship and Six Nations can be held at same time, top 3 of six nations and top 3 of Rugby championship (6 nations should include Georgia AND another qualifying country while Fiji, Japan and Samoa/Tonga qualifier should make out 6 Southern teams).. Scrap June internationals and year end tours. Have a Elite top six Cup and the Bottom 6 in a secondary comp….
19 Go to commentsThe rugby championship would be even stronger with Fiji in it… I know it doesen’t fit the long term plans of NZ or Aus but you are robbing a whole nation of being able to see their best players play for Fiji…. Every second player in NZ and AUS teams has Fijian surnames… shame on you!!! World rugby won’t step in either as France and England has now also joined in…. I guess where money is involved it will always be the poor countries missing out….
90 Go to commentsNo surprise there. How hard can it be to pick a ball off the ground and chuck it to a mate? 😂
4 Go to commentsSometimes people just like a moan mate!
9 Go to comments