Ulster Rugby v Cheetahs

ARTICLE BY ROD NAWN FREELANCE JOURNALIST AND SPORTS ENTHUSIAST @RODNAWN1

Ulster is determined to meet the challenges ahead with renewed vigour and imagination, and on this first day of September a new competition provides a stage for a generation of players to fulfil themselves and their supporters’ hopes. These are exciting, fast-moving times. Step aboard, it’s going to be a spectacular ride!

influence and the responses of important individual players will be evident, and performers of the calibre of Trimble, Bowe, McCloskey, the Marshalls, Cave, Piutau, Stockdale, Gilroy, Lyttle, Cooney and Ludik will want to lead the team into the early autumn with emphatic results and thrilling displays. Tonight most observers anticipate that, galvanising and exciting though the club’s arrival in the PRO14 is, the Cheetahs will take some time to adapt to conditions 5,000 miles from Bloemfontein. Remember too that the parent club is currently engaged on two fronts, with the defence of the prestigious Currie Cup title a high priority. Coach Rory Duncan has to shuffle his resources for various reasons, and international demands mean that Springboks such as the outstanding breakaway forward Uzair Cassiem are not immediately available. But Duncan has made it clear that the Cheetahs see the rugby future increasingly being shaped in Europe. That view is shared by many clubs in South Africa who feel they contribute more than they benefit from being part of Super Rugby. That is an exciting thought for Ulster and the existing PRO14 operation, and those oft-stated ‘world class’ ambitions for Kingspan and the league do seem far more realistic as the product becomes more attractive and the consequent revenues are generated to offer supporters the quality of rugby and of players that aim implies. Tonight is an exciting night for Ulster and its loyal fans, for the new-look Guinness PRO14, and for the Cheetahs and Southern Kings as they become part of an expanded and truly international competition. The Cheetahs come with a reputation for playing with adventure, with panache, but they are well- drilled, thoroughly professional and Ulster this evening – and Munster next weekend in Limerick – will not under-estimate the qualities of a team skippered by the industrious Niell Jordaan. Both of this evening’s sides will want to lay down a ‘marker’, and the fascinating additions to the league will expand the span of the PRO14, geographically and in sporting and commercial terms.

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