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47
ROD NAWN
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
Anscombe and is prolific try-scorer.
But at this key stage of the season it’s
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
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!