Ulster Rugby v Munster

R O D N A W N

The last weekend before Christmas, wine and thoughts to be mulled in the bracing chill of a Belfast evening filled with expectation and good cheer.

ULSTER WANTS A SEASONAL PRESENCE

be consistent, astute, confident and hugely competitive. Tonight’s Inter-Pro brings a longstanding rivalry to life as the festive sporting programme begins in earnest. The players’ familiarity with each other as they developed through Irish rugby means each one will want to have his ‘A’ game on show this evening if title and Cup pursuits are to be sustained – and for many a place in Ireland’s plans for the potentially historic 2019 can be advanced. McFarland and van Graan are two young, intelligent coaches with a demanding, commanding style of management that has quickly won respect in Belfast and Limerick respectively. The former knows Irish rugby intimately from his time playing for Connacht, while the South African who succeeded Rassie Erasmus in Munster has proved his relative inexperience is more than compensated for by an acute tactical brain and a muscular management approach. In the PRO14, Munster is headed only by Glasgow Warriors in Conference A, while Ulster’s less convincing journey has still been navigated well enough to go into a vital phase of the season in third spot in Conference B; only Leinster and Scarlets more firmly in potential play-off spots.

And then up pulls a Munster squad forged in the white-hot fire of Europe and domestic competitions for a decade and much more. Sure, where could you find much more generous visitors on the cusp of the long holiday into 2019? Particularly when Ulster is riding high after two emphatic performances in Europe to follow up a crucial Guinness PRO14 win over the Blues in Cardiff last month. Well, it’s true that Ulster collected a maximum haul from its back-to-back Champions Cup contests with a starry Scarlets, while Top 14 winners Castres got a measure of revenge from a thumping in Thomond Park a fortnight ago with a narrow defeat of Johann van Graan’s side in the return. For a team with a firm focus on European success, the narrow loss was disappointing, but it still tops a ‘Group of Death’ which means all four clubs – the others Exeter and Gloucester enter the New Year with European hopes still very much alive. Dan McFarland must have felt a warm satisfaction at recent results, but Ulster’s Head Coach has a very definite focus on the longer-term indicators, so the performances at Parc Y Scarlets and at Kingspan Stadium last weekend will have helped further convince him that the current squad, when at full strength, can

40

WWW.ULSTERRUGBY.COM