Ulster Rugby vs Edinburgh

THE HUNT FOR A BIG OCTOBER

by ROD NAWN

On two fronts this month Ulster will really hope to find the form and consistency to shape the season.

Nobody will be fooled by the bizarre circumstances which saw a losing bonus point in Italy hoist the team into third place in the PRO12 league table: it’s about winning matches and getting a minimum of four points, and adding to the try-count at every sensible opportunity. Edinburgh arrive in Belfast on the back of a home draw at Murrayfield against the Scarlets, and with a wonderful win in Munster already ‘in the bank’. Alan Solomons returns to the stadium where he directed operations in for three years from 2001, but the South African knows Ulster so well that the marvellous arena and facilities at Kingspan have been made possible by a professional approach on and off the field which he had no small part in establishing during his strict, determined stewardship as coach. The Celtic Cup was won in his reign, ironically on a night at Murrayfield when the heavens opened but Ulster showed those early signs of consistent application and self-belief. Alan’s time in the South African international team management set-up, his frontline coaching roles all over the world, provides testament to his hunger for improvement. He’s never tried to ‘dodge’ a challenge and with Edinburgh he believes he has a club which can cause more than the occasional upset, that the Scottish capital’s players can match any in league and European competition. Neil Doak, Jonny Bell and Allen Clarke will know that one of the game’s sharpest intellects will send out a Scottish side focussed on its own targets in the PRO12, and with real belief it can do damage in Europe. But for the majority of fans in Kingspan this evening the hope will be that the men in the famous white jerseys will calmly announce that it’s ‘business as usual’. The last six weeks has seen most players get really testing game time, and whatever side takes the field and whoever sits awaiting a call from the bench, there will be quality and confidence aplenty. This Ulster squad has a very real bond with its supporters, their pain is theirs, and their success is a shared experience. For the fans the next month is a rugby feast to savour, but the main course immediately is Edinburgh, the target a performance to fully restore the batteries of self-belief – and a victory from which to launch the real assault in league and in Europe.

October is traditionally a key segment of the rugby calendar, with an increasingly competitive Guinness PRO12 holding station while Europe’s rich pickings beckon. Both competitions have been revamped, their importance enhanced, Ulster will face Edinburgh and Glasgow in the next eight days, followed by a mouth-watering week with Champions’ Cup action in Leicester and at Kingspan Stadium against Europe’s kingpins, Toulon. It is a four-week period which undeniably can set the tone for the season. It will not necessarily derail ambitions in league and cup, but winning is a habit which can be happily, harmlessly addictive. It provides – to use a word so much used at Gleneagles last weekend – momentum, that abstract but very real surge in belief. Winning matches, and winning when performing well, breeds confidence in the squad and very notably in individual players. Collectively that confidence grows, nurtured by the coaches and management in a positive, marshalled way. It has been the Ulster way, in recent years, to build towards the autumn in a manner which prepares a large squad to be prepared and palpably capable for a month of real endeavour and enterprise. Last weekend’s defeat in Zebre was a shock to the Ulster system – players, management and fans – will be dwelling on the errors and perceived injustices in Parma. This week’s training sessions will have addressed the deficiencies of that first-ever loss to the improving Zebre, but they will have concentrated more on fine-tuning the players’ undoubted qualities, asking for them to individually and as a group to take on Edinburgh this evening with controlled ferocity of purpose. The old maxim of ‘one game at a time’ will have been uttered many times on the pitches and in the team rooms, and the importance of setting a winning template for this key month will not be lost on a squad which has an intelligence and awareness about itself which will demand that Kingspan Stadium sees a performance of conviction and character against the Scottish visitors. There will not be any complaints or moans from the coaching team about the unprecedented injury count, it has assembled a pool which is deep in talent and in ambition for itself and for Ulster Rugby.

MATCH PREVIEW

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ULSTER RUGBY

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