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Ulster fans who, last Saturday, so tunefully and
emotionally joined in the farewell salute to one of
the game’s finest servants and genuine heroes,
must harness the same passion on this very special
Kingspan Stadium evening.
The arrival of Munster at any point in the season is
always something which gets the juices going; the
men in red have for over a century offered a very
unique Inter-Provincial challenge. Nowadays the
matches with Ulster are played within the competitive
structures of League and Cup, but they are always
rumbustious and highly-charged.
This evening the hosts will acknowledge the very
best virtues of Munster Rugby: its fervour, its
resilience, its implacable rejection of anything less
than total commitment to the cause of team and
community, and its relish to vanquish all opposition
with complete mental and physical application and
imagination.
Anthony Foley, of Munchins, Shannon, Munster
and Ireland represented all those qualities, and as
Head Coach of his beloved Province he was not just
respected, he was held in an affection few in any
walk of life can expect. The tangible and audible
evocation of this will be demonstrated in full measure
at Kingspan, and hopefully his wife and sons will get
some comfort from the swell of pride the game and
people beyond it had in Axel, a true legend.
His team did him immense credit last Saturday
when, after deciding to go ahead with its Champions
Cup tie with Glasgow Warriors, it thrilled a capacity
Thomond Park crowd already fuelled by an
overwhelming emotion of loss. Those players in the
Munster family are part of Foley’s giant legacy, but he
would want them to do what he wanted of them each
and every day: their best.
And so Ulster can expect a formidable opposition
this evening, and as thoughts delicately turn to the
matter in hand, a win in the PRO12, the supporters
of both teams who’ll fill Kingspan to the rafters
can expect a rousing if emotionally embroidered
encounter between a team which has set the pace in
the league since September and one which stumbled
early on but is now very much in the title-chasing
fray.
Indeed, it’s a remarkable thought that by Saturday
evening any one of the top six teams in the PRO12
could sit atop the pile so congested is the field.
Ulster – if it wins - can, though, approach its final
game before the Autumn International break in
Edinburgh next Friday assured of an entrenched Top
Four spot.
Munster will have very different thoughts and skipper
Peter O’Mahony – who can never have imagined
been thrust back into action this month after a long
injury lay-off in such surreal and tragic circumstances
- will want to once more summon up the will in his
panel which saw Glasgow so spectacularly put to the
sword in Limerick last week. A win for the visitors in
Belfast could – if Cardiff and Glasgow were to falter
at home to the Scarlets and Treviso respectively
tonight – launch the men in red to pole position in
the table.
Coaches Les Kiss, Neil Doak, Allen Clarke, Joe
Barakat – on the eve of his departure from Ulster
to hopefully great things ‘down under’ – with Niall
Malone, will have examined the visitors’ strengths
and skillsets in minute detail, they will have factored
in all the traditional Munster qualities and the
extraordinary hinterland to this game.
The Champions Cup win over Exeter in Belfast
last Saturday was thrilling in its climax but players,
management and fans know that a repeat staccato
display will not forever deliver results and vital league
points. Moments of brilliance and carnage from
Charles Piutau stood out too brightly as rare beacons
of invention, and the handling errors in difficult
conditions were compounded – less forgivably – by
the concession of penalties in the wrong areas of
the pitch. Only Paddy Jackson’s super drop goal
prevented Gareth Steenson and his impeccable boot
leaving his former home with a victory for the Chiefs.
Kiwi out-half Tyler Bleyendaal showed how punishing
his place-kicking can be, and he also showed that
as a playmaker he brings something to the current
Munster team it had lacked in the early weeks of the
season, a real attacking spark so reminiscent of the
glory days.
Munster, with CJ Stander, O’Mahony, Donnacha
Ryan, Tommy O’Donnell, Dave Kilcoyne, James
Cronin, Conor Murray and Simon Zebo – to name but
a few shrewd, experienced and talented players – will
exploit any such spendthrift offences in the ruck or
maul, and Ulster will have watched a replay of the
Exeter game through gritted teeth.
It will be a match day panel determined to sweep
away the negatives in the performances against
Connacht and Bordeaux-Begles in defeat, and
perhaps more significantly against the Chiefs in
dramatic but unconvincing victory.
Following tumultuous weeks on and particularly off the pitch during the
opening rounds of the European campaigns it’s very much back to Guinness
PRO12 business over the next 24 hours.
RIVALS IN A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN
ROD NAWN