Ulster Rugby vs Treviso

ITALY CLUBS TOGETHER IN NEW RUGBY ORDER

WHEN you like your rugby to come fast and furiously there is nothing quite like the feast provided in Europe’s club leagues and by its international sides in seven glorious weeks in this monumental rugby year 2015.

While Ireland got off to a solid, if spectacular, Six Nations pursuit in Rome last Saturday, the PRO12 teams were shaping up, after a brief break, for the most important stage of their season. And from that game in the Stadio Olympico perhaps a signal of what Ulster can expect from the visitors should be acknowledged. The international side was combative, robust and physically imposing against Joe Schmidt’s side for nearly an hour, and in the end it was just that extra piece of quality and all-round ability which saw the current Six Nations champions off to a good start – a platform, we hope, for a further step up against France in Dublin tomorrow. With seven Treviso players in the current Italian squad that is some indication of the club’s primary position in the domestic game, and Ulster’s Neil Doak will have prepared the 23 players on duty this evening for one of the most testing games under his stewardship. Only last month Ulster put on one of its most impressive and creative displays of the season as it raced to a 24-point lead in the Stadio di Monigo – only to fly home that night hugely relieved to have racked up a win after a storming home retort had reduced the deficit at the final whistle to just four points. Doak, like most PRO12 coaches, is now resuming the league campaign with his resources culled in key areas for Ireland’s Call, but he has planned for the next several weeks knowing he’ll dig deep into his squad. He is absolutely convinced he has the quality and commitment to navigate the forthcoming PRO12 matches and keep on track for a top four place, and the tantalising prospect of a final at Kingspan Stadium in May. The coaching team will hope that Schmidt might release some of the Ulster contingent to get some important game time, but it will have had confidence in a pool of players slowly returning to full health to keep the momentum going after that wonderful win last month against Leicester. That performance, classy and complete, was the precise response required to satisfy the faithful fans and to stay the ill-timed criticisms and out-of-touch assessments of Ulster’s character and resolve after an injury-ravaged side fell in Toulon a week earlier. A closer look at that performance in France might have persuaded the more reasonable observer that even when down to the ‘bare bones’ players such as Mike McComish – one exceptional example – were not just ready for the fray but had the talent and passion to wear the jersey with pride when the odds were so perfidiously stacked against them. Focus this evening is entirely on the game with Treviso, but as many will have seen Doak and Team Manager, Bryn Cunningham have been busy not just bringing in some high-quality short-term cover but planning for next year and beyond. The return of flanker Willie Faloon, announced this week, is just one significant indicator that the squad will deepen further, and he’s a very particular signing. A product of the Hughes Insurance Academy, its then supremo Gary Longwell held fast to a conviction that he had the potential to become a world-class performer.

Injury blighted his time with the Ulster senior team and after a blistering start with Connacht – where the captaincy was often conferred on this most understated but effective of back- rowers – Willie was beset with more serious injury hurdles. That Connacht gave him a new long-term deal when he was undergoing serious surgery and ‘rehab’ says something of the regard in which he’s held by men like Pat Lam. He and the others which the management team are quietly assembling guarantee that Ulster Rugby will be an enduring European force, and that the quest for silverware is unstinting. But at Kingspan Stadium tonight, though, there’ll be a wariness of, and preparedness for, a Treviso team which does not accept any casting as ‘whipping boy’ in the PRO12. This is a club which has nurtured rugby since 1932, which has been in European Cup competition since its inception in 1995, and which is a founding member of the Celtic League, the template for the hugely competitive league we have today. Any side which could draw with Leinster and push Cardiff, Connacht and Glasgow to the very limit, and meanwhile confirm its dominance in Italy with wins over Zebre, is at the very least hugely competitive. In coach Umberto Casellato Treviso has a well-trained, experienced, well-travelled and flexible mind at the helm, and he’ll relish the challenge of an unfamiliar but still strikingly enterprising Ulster formation this evening. The visitors have an international squad from which to select, so Kiwi fullback Justin Hayward, England’s Rupert Harden at prop can ably complement the native gifts of wing Angelo Esposito and centre Andrea Pratichetti in a line-up which is robust, very organised, and after the experience of last month Ulster will know that there is a full 80 minutes of rugby to complete. ‘The Italian Job’ is no rugby ‘caper’, it’s a professional challenge which Ulster is very well-suited to taking on and subduing, and with what is undoubtedly a more attack- minded backline Ian Humphreys and Ruan Pienaar can sow the seeds of what would be an important victory. With Rory Best, Jared Payne, Robbie Diack, Tommy Bowe, Iain Henderson and others concentrating on their contributions for Ireland, forthcoming games against Edinburgh, Scarlets, Glasgow, Cardiff and the Dragons will truly test the mettle of every member of the Ulster squad. Neil Doak will have strategies and line-ups to face each game as it comes, but his ambition is clear and unambiguous, the commitment of his charges to that complete: winning rugby. When the ‘gallacticos’ return to the fold they should find the camp in rude health, and the Guinness PRO12 season heading for another tumultuous climax, with Ulster right at the heart of the trophy chase. In the midst of these wondrous few months of rugby Ulster is intent on making its own very special impression. …A great one.

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