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ROD NAWN
IT’S ABOUT LOOKING AFTER BUSINESS
FRIDAY night in late August at Kingspan Stadium, a familiar and fierce rivalry
is about to be renewed, but this evening’s ‘derby’ with Leinster is shaped by a
plethora of out-of-the-ordinary circumstances.
ROD NAWN
by ROD
NAWN
The competitive Guinness PRO12 season is just two
weeks away, so taking on Leinster in Belfast is certainly
match-hardening preparation, as is next Friday’s trip to
Goldenacre to play Edinburgh.
Both these games are important to the respective
managements as they consider their formations for
the business to come of chasing titles and trophies
in the ‘regular’ season and in the Champions Cup,
where Saracens, Toulouse and competition debutants
Oyannax constitute a considerable European
challenge.
But, of course, Ulster gets its season underway tonight
against the background of the forthcoming World Cup
through September and October, and with the Irish
squad for the tournament about to be honed down
to just 31 players. Head Coach Neil Doak must take
credit for fulfilling part of his remit to the national cause
by supplying so many quality players to the fancied
squad Joe Schmidt is currently ‘auditioning’.
Supporters will hope that the contingent from Ulster
will be part of the 31-man panel which will be finalised
at the end of the month, and Doak and his assistants
know their task is to manage their priority with the
resources left available. In short, some relatively
unfamiliar names will feature for the Province over the
next two warm-up games.
It will fall to the remaining core of senior players – Rob
Herring, Paul Marshall, Louis Ludik, Ian Humphreys,
Franco van der Merwe and Wiehahn Herbst for
instance – to offer a stable, experience platform on to
which young talents such as Stuart McCloskey, Sam
Arnold, Rory Scholes, Peter Nelson, Sean Reidy, Clive
Ross, Frank Taggart and a clutch of others on the brink
of the first-team squad can jump with confidence.
For the two friendlies, and for up to six matches in
the PRO12, Ulster’s World Cup hopefuls will not be
available, their focus properly on the William Webb Ellis
Trophy. That means opportunity for so many players,
and it also challenges the management skills of Doak,
Allen Clarke, the newly-arrived Joe Barakat and skills
coach Niall Malone.
They know they have genuine quality in the ranks,
much of it relatively and deliberately unheralded, and it
has been carefully nurtured with the future in mind. Into
many of their hands Ulster will offer the chance to give
the club a positive, challenging start to what is shaping
up to be another fascinating and demanding year.
And though the team sheets – because not just Ulster
faces up to a new campaign without its internationals –
will sometimes strike an inquisitive squad with the fans,
these players will hopefully soon become recognised
as integral members of a powerful and well-balanced
squad.
When the Ospreys arrive at the Kingspan in two weeks
for the PRO12 ‘opener’ the Ulster side will have been
prepared thoroughly, skilfully and professionally to
launch a new season. And the players in the matchday
squad will have had a message drilled firmly into
their minds: that they are Ulster’s first-choices, they
perform in no-one’s shadow, that they have the ability
and the responsibility to replicate the form which has
seen Ulster come so tantalisingly close to silverware in
recent seasons.
Barakat’s arrival on a two-year deal promises to
refresh the coaching set-up, and his international
experience with the Waratahs, with the Fiji national
side, and his fine record in the increasingly impressive
and combative Japanese game as an expert in
defence and the set piece brings a new eye and an
original voice to the management.
Neil Doak wants him to have a particular focus on
the collision aspect of the modern game, and with
the special expertise Clarke, Malone and the Head
Coach himself bring, Ulster’s backroom team looks to
have had a good pre-season and is concentrated on
providing a winning, positive structure within which the
‘new boys’ can flourish.
And this evening’s opponents, Leinster, will all-too-
readily recognise the very particular hurdles and the
opportunities posed by this World Cup autumn. It’s
perhaps a signal of the club’s recent pre-eminence in
the PRO12 and in Europe that last Saturday no fewer
than 14 Leinster players were in Ireland’s matchday 23
against Scotland in Dublin!
The national side has relied heavily on a province
which would count the last couple of seasons as
disappointing when contrasted to back-to-back
PRO12 titles and a decade when the European Cup
was regularly brought home to the RDS.
The appointment of Leo Cullen as Head Coach this
week confirms the high regard in which the former
captain and Ireland international is held, and after a
year as forwards coach he’ll be delighted to land the
top job. But he’ll want to show he’s there on merit,
and he has Kurt McQuilkin permanently on board,
and Girvan Dempsey overseeing the backs, while
manager Guy Easterby makes up the core of a wise
management team. Cullen always regarded games
with Ulster as important – his debut as ‘the man’ will
make tonight even more intriguing as he matches
up against Doak who has served a more complete
‘apprenticeship.’