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WHEN THE TOUGH GET GOING
Ulster, top-of-the-table in the Guinness PRO12 after a busy, exhausting
sequence of matches in league and in Europe.
ROD NAWN
That sounds – and is – good news, but fans,
players and management know that the ‘end game’
is approaching, and that in a congested queue
for the top four, the quality and consistency of
performances need to move to a level much higher
than those which squeezed past the Dragons and
Glasgow in the last fortnight.
The Scarlets arrive at lunchtime today, and a point
off the leaders, the Welsh will want to dine well and
put an already unpredictable race for the play-offs
into even more complex perspective.
Munster have played twice since Ulster finally
vanquished Glasgow, Connacht and Leinster –
right in the rear mirror of Les Kiss’ side – will hope
to have confirmed their places in the elite four,
and there can be no doubt there’ll be a degree of
pressure from the stands, terraces, the coaches to
extend a winning run which has been solid but has
not been entirely convincing.
There have been ‘plusses’, palpable and more
abstract: the resilience and character shown by
individuals and by the team when confronted by
sides which are increasingly well-drilled defensively,
and in that most elusive of qualities, ‘finding a
way’ when perhaps the most well-rehearsed and
imaginative ploys have come up short.
And, though so often repeated, the Ulster side
has been refashioned in the last month to
accommodate international calls, injuries and the
all-important management of players who have
been through the fire of a gruelling Champions
Cup campaign and key PRO12 matches. There is
constant scrutiny in training and in the all-seeing
medical and Strength and Conditioning sessions of
just what wear and tear a player’s body has taken
and is able – with the longer term in view – to give
with proper management.
Rugby is a sport now so physically demanding
that medical science plays a very real role in
conversations about squad training, individual
fitness regimes, and – ultimately – team selection.
It’s stating the obvious that players returning
from injury with a full bill of health is always good,
refreshing news, and Stuart Olding is a high-
profile example of how real care and attention to
the detail of injury and to the process of ‘rehab’
is so important. And in those months when he
was forced to go the ‘hard yards’ mentally and
physically he was clear what his targets could be,
and equally he knew, given the studied guidance
of the Ulster medical support team, just where he
could and could not ‘push’.
The old school of players would be astonished
by the developments in sport science: no longer
is it an ethereal non-practical aspect of how the
modern professional club is structured. Coaches
are highly-educated in the consequences of
premature returns from injury, and of the possible,
negative by-products of ‘hoping for the best’ when
player take ‘knocks’ in games.
The importance of physical contact in the game
today is even reflected quite properly in the
specialist functions delegated to coaches.
This season the experienced Joe Barakat has
brought his encyclopaedic knowledge of the
‘collision’ to the training ground. In the heat of
competitive battle better skills are now evident
in the positioning of the body in, say, a tackle
situation, but these are complex and varied
situations to cover, and a player’s best instincts
are now allied to knowledge of the best possible
options to adopt in executing and ‘taking’ the
inevitable and increasingly powerful ‘hits’ which
can have the watching spectator flinching.
And for every Olding or Tommy Bowe, consigned to
long, draining periods of disciplined inactivity and
subsequent graduated returns to exercise, there are
others in the Academy, from the ‘A’s and from the
age-group and the clubs who are receiving expert
treatment and very firm ‘return to play’ protocols.
While concussions are so much in the news, and
rightly concerning, by far the greater amount of
time spent by the medics is devoted to real, often
sophisticated injuries which, in another era, might
have been career-ending.
So it’s perhaps timely, while properly considering
what has been a rather uninspiring and
unspectacular few weeks in the PRO12 that there is
‘background’ too for a legion of players who would
just love to be part of the action and contributing a
lustre to the recent displays.
There are other issues at work in Ulster’s less-
than-spectacular performances of late, but they
have been winning performances. The Six Nations
inevitably causes disruption and familiar players