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In truth Ulster’s hopes of qualifying for the
Champions Cup knockout stages were fatally
undermined by a literally pointless opening Pool 5
trip to Bordeaux in October, and today’s lunchtime
rendezvous with the same opposition does offer
the opportunity of avenging that reverse - though it
won’t alter the remainder of the team’s diary for this
season: sporting Brexit was triggered earlier than
planned.
The Guinness PRO12 will become the sole,
committed target for Les Kiss and his players,
and there is much ground to be made up in that
competition if the semi-finals are to become a
realistic target.
There was, of course, widespread disappointment in
the squad and amongst supporters that the annual
European odyssey was to all intents and purposes
at an end, though the spirit and style of Ulster’s
performance at Sandy Park on Sunday deserved –
and received – some plaudits.
This afternoon a real boost for the panel and –
very definitely for the Kingspan fans – would be a
convincing win and a rousing performance today
against Bordeaux-Bégles as we bid ‘au revoir’ to the
Cup tournament which so thrills and excites us all.
Ulster famously became the first Irish team to win
the European Cup in never-to-be-forgotten days and
nights in 1998/99, games which have since inspired
an increasingly fierce desire to repeat that wondrous
feat by Harry Williams’ collection of talented players,
a few truly professional, but most of them earning
livings outside the game.
Somehow the coach organised training schedules
to suit his ambitious and determined group, but as
Ulster came to terms with the professional era at a
rather more gentile pace than other clubs in the world
the triumph of Lansdowne Road in January 1999,
against French opponents Colomiers, wasn’t even a
pipe dream: surviving at Ebbw Vale and Edinburgh
were the immediate concerns of early autumn!
These are very different times. The professional
game is firmly established, and with that demands of
everyone, from coaches to supporters, have become
more intense, the relationship with players more
complex as the training and playing environments
have been become so sophisticated that clubs – and
international sides to an even greater extent – feel
they must have some influence, if not control, over
matters off the pitch.
The contrast with the amateur game of just 20 years
ago is startling, the effects on the sport varied and
subject still to debate: the technique and technical
quality of the modern player is unquestioned, and
with the specific, specialised coaching which has
developed in parallel the overall standards on the field
have soared.
Alongside the progress in identifying, nurturing and
maturing talented rugby players whose gifts can earn
them handsome livings so too has grown a slick, truly
professional administrative arm to the most ambitious
clubs, and Ulster has set the template in terms of
a state-of-the-art stadium, a priority on supporter
welfare and in the provision of a rugby ‘experience’ at
Kingspan Stadium.
Identifying Friday night rugby as a trigger for
expanding the game’s appeal is something that
has worked superbly. A whole new audience was
instantly created in the 90s: players, officials and
supporters of clubs committed – as now – to
Saturday afternoons suddenly were able to watch the
Province in competitive action, and shrewd marketing
made a night at Onslow Parade an attractive social
proposition for all the family.
The media was quick to reflect the growing interest
in the Ulster team as it travelled ever more widely
each year as the Celtic League grew into today’s
Guinness PRO12 Championship, while the European
challenges added real exotica to the sporting
calendar.
From three Inter-Pros and a few friendlies each
season, illuminated occasionally by the visit of a
touring international team, to a diary of games
which stretches from early August to the end of May
illustrates the phenomenal change in Ulster’s season.
With tangible silverware rewards at stake, hopes
and aspirations each late summer are always high,
the relish for combat palpable, the atmosphere in a
wonderful sporting amphitheatre electric.
At what we like to call ‘grassroots’ level there have
been consequences, some of them very challenging
in an age when professional sport is so dominant in
the public psyche. ‘Managing Change’ is one of the
modern mantras, to some a pretentious and rather
glib description of sometimes irrevocable transition,
and it is an ongoing process as the sport and its
governing bodies continue to wrestle with their
responsibilities and obligations beyond 80 action-
packed minutes from the best players in the world
each week.
On that top tier of the professional game results are
king, rich tradition which makes the sport so uniquely
appealing can be swiftly swept aside if the owners
or managing bodies decide that in the balance
sought between development and actual success
Heady thoughts of success in Europe this season were effectively, yet again,
consigned to the ‘what might have been’ file in Exeter last Sunday.
TIME FOR ALL TO JOIN THE TEAM!
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