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ARTICLE BY ROD NAWN
FREELANCE JOURNALIST
AND SPORTS ENTHUSIAST
@RODNAWN1
Tonight’s match may be the opening skirmish of
a much longer battle to follow over the next nine
months, but the coaches and the players who will be
involved – from the start or off the bench – will want
to put down a ‘marker’ for the season, and Ulster
against Leinster always has a rather special flavour,
some would even say frisson!
But what is certain is that the serious business
starts here. The pre-season training has been, by
all accounts, innovative, strenuous if enjoyable,
and while many of us basked in the sun abroad or
sheltered in the grey holiday skies closer to home,
the Ulster squad has been gradually working towards
what we, the supporters and observers, ultimately
judge it by: the performances and successes.
The qualities by which the team is always measured
are no less expected in a ‘friendly’ than in the white-
hot fervour of a Top Four encounter or vital European
tie: imagination, cohesion, determination, focus and
the ability to create, entertain and react to adversity.
Neil Doak sends out a side this evening which will
bear his unmistakeable imprint, and that will reflect
all those qualities. As a player and as a coach he has
always been associated with an attacking mind-
set, but acutely aware of a team’s need to maintain
concentration, to impose its authority and its talents
on the game, and to use its intelligence to respond to
the unexpected.
So often the refrain is ‘get the basics right’, and it is a
truism. Ulster expects those to be a ‘given’ and to see
structures which allow the individual to flourish and
stand out, but all in the overall cause of the team.
Over the next two games anticipate many players
we have grown to trust and respect to line out with
new faces, some recent or current products of the
Hughes Insurance Academy, and together they will
be challenged to provide a convincing basis on
which the competitive year can be launched when
the always threatening Ospreys draw a full house to
Kingspan Stadium on Friday 4th September.
The work has been done, the playing pool prepared,
all that remains to be done are making some ‘tweaks’
and the polishing of some partnerships and various
game plans.
Leinster has similar motivations, and it is a
province designed to succeed. On the pitch and
in its management are people hoping to make an
impression.
Just like Ulster.