Ulster Rugby vs Cardiff Blues

ARTICLE BY ROD NAWN FREELANCE JOURNALIST AND SPORTS ENTHUSIAST @RODNAWN1

and deft running and handling, while Luke Marshall, Stuart Olding, Craig Gilroy, Andrew Trimble and Jacob Stockdale will be hoping to get an opportunity to maintain the momentum Ulster has gathered with six successive wins. And Jared Payne’s return to fitness and to action has been unsurprisingly effective, and his intervention and the reassurance his skills provide was critical in the win two weeks ago at the Dragons. That victory was hard won, and Rodney Parade has too long been a graveyard for the visitors. So given Gilroy’s bewildering ‘sinbinning’, and the red card rightly issued to Rodney Ah You for an illegal collision, the team showed a character and intelligence in leaving Wales with four points to stay fourth in the table. Cardiff, of course, poses its own considerable threats behind the scrum, and Matthew Morgan, Alex Cuthbert and Rey Lee-Lo there is an instinct to attack at pace and from deep, while Steve Shingler and Gareth Anscombe have enviable kicking records, the latter particularly dangerous when he employs his drop goal skills. Another Welsh international, Lloyd Williams, will hope to start at scrum-half, though Tomas Williams is also a gifted option to partner understandable that the focus for most of the packed Kingspan area will be on the home side and its determination to continue a winning run which needs to be stretched to stay in that elite group of four at the top of the table. That the concluding three matches of this Guinness PRO12 campaign are against the three teams currently leading the way only emphasises the importance of taking each game on its merits. Next week’s trip to the Ospreys, the game with Munster at the end of this month, then the potentially season-defining clash at Kingspan against a high-flying Leinster in early May guarantee a thrilling finale. Les Kiss and Head Coach Neil Doak, so often the fount of attacking invention in Ulster sides, will be acutely aware of just what Cardiff is capable of Anscombe and is prolific try-scorer. But at this key stage of the season it’s

producing on the pitch and the entire coaching staff will have concentrated its collective talents on giving the team every opportunity to be in a position to compete for the title and coveted silverware late next month by out-thinking this evening’s visitors. There is always emotional turmoil when this stage of the year arrives and the prospect of success dangled like a bewitching lure. Unlike Cardiff consistent Top Four finishes have been the ‘norm’ for the men in white, though the route to the semi-finals has often been bumpy. But through all the doubts at times the fans have been typically superb, at home and away, and at Kingspan especially there is always a full house willing to clear its throat and roar the players on. ‘The 16th Man’ is indeed what that support is, and it needs to be at the top of its own form for the coming month. At the start of a crucial month it would be truly uplifting to hear those fans singing the Blues all the way back to Cardiff!

ROD NAWN

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