24 / 68
22
JOIN IN TO CREATE PURE DRAMA!
Long before professional rugby, or a league or Cup competition reaching
beyond these shores was ever contemplated, one fixture commanded
attention each year.
ROD NAWN
When Ulster and Leinster met it was usually just before
Christmas, almost always to decide the Inter-Provincial
title, and the game often offered an indication of
which players would be featuring in the Five Nations
Championship – once the little-lamented Irish Trial in the
New Year had been endured!
The matches between the sides were always compelling,
significant, and thoroughly combative – it was indeed
a different age but if we think the fixture now has an
inbuilt feistiness, a core ‘edge’, remind yourself of the
competitive natures of such as Nelson, Mulcahy, McBride,
Keane, Kennedy, Dawson, Henderson, Kyle, Strathdee,
the brothers Doyle and Irwin, Mullin, Milliken, Gibson,
McCombe, Flynn, Ward, McCall, Field, Slattery, Carr,
Davidson, McKinney and an infinite firmament of rugby
stars.
How they would have relished this afternoon’s clash in an
environment so very different but still intimidating, and in
front of almost 18,000 fans rather than the few hundred
truly partisan supporters who could electrify the chilliest
December afternoon decades ago!
The present generation of players from Ulster and Leinster
will feel no less focussed, determined or uncompromising
when they meet at Kingspan Stadium, the target for
each team a win which would help towards a ‘tilt’ at the
Guinness PRO12 title after what have been ‘roller-coaster’
campaigns for the squads of Les Kiss and Leo Cullen.
European Champions Cup success for teams with that
prize very much to the fore as each season starts was
denied both, Ulster coming agonisingly close to quarter-
final qualification, but for Leinster it was a truly miserable
year, and Cullen deserves credit for fashioning a PRO12
challenge from an unpromising position in late autumn.
Ulster had surely been affected by the loss of important
players to the Ireland World Cup squad, but today’s
opponents were deprived of, literally, a whole team
throughout that tournament, and – like so many others –
had a catalogue of injuries and loss of form to cope with in
the aftermath.
As this weekend began the race for the critical top
four places, and thus PRO12 semi-final spots, was a
congested, intriguing, nail-biting one. Leinster sat top as
this penultimate round of games in the ‘regular’ season
started, but Connacht and Glasgow hoped to move above
the Dublin-based outfit with wins last night against Italian
opposition.
Ulster climbed back into the leading group with a free-
scoring win in Zebre a fortnight ago, but just six weeks
ago the side was in pole position in the table and players,
coaches and supporters watched a worrying slide
threaten to bring the rugby year to an early conclusion.
For Leinster and Ulster today’s game is of incalculable
importance: a win for the former would surely guarantee
a semi-final in three weeks, while for Ulster victory would
mean next Saturday’s visit to Ospreys would assume even
greater importance – if that was possible!
Beat Leinster and Kiss and his Head Coach Neil Doak
and their squad would travel to Wales, still in fourth place,
but with the Scarlets – and possibly Edinburgh - retaining
a play-off interest nothing less than a win at the Liberty
Stadium next Saturday afternoon would suffice to extend
the season.
And in all likelihood at least one try bonus point in the next
seven days will be required to set up a dramatic finale: a
semi-final away from home, then the prospect of a final,
and silverware, on the last Saturday of May!
So the atmosphere this afternoon should be electric, it’s
what’s at stake this year which will concentrate the minds
of both dressing rooms. The fixture is soaked in history,
recent and of more recent vintage, but all that will be but
background to a game which is full of possibilities, and
with more-or-less skills complete and healthy squads the
coaching teams will send out players dripping with rugby
lustre.
There’ll be a good Leinster support – as always – in
Kingspan Stadium, contributing to that exhilarating
mixture of anticipation, trepidation, celebration and
disappointment. What it, and the vocal Ulster fans can
be sure of, is that the players will be more committed and
determined than at any point of what have been seasons
of high expectation, and which could still yield vital
silverware.
There are players of great talent and no little experience
in both blue and white today, and their individual contests
will be intriguing, though it will be the side which most
cohesively harnesses those abilities which will come out
on top and keep the flame of the PRO12 title alive in its
camp.
In Italy two weeks ago Tommy Bowe was the latest to
come off Ulster’s long-term casualty list, and the Lions
winger looked as if he’d never been away – two fine
tries and running those uniquely loping ‘lines’ to join
another attack from deep. Jared Payne’s intelligence and
unconventional deftness and athleticism brought a hat-
trick in Zebre, but it’s what he brings to those around him
which increasingly wins him more and more plaudits.
Paddy Jackson’s focus will be on guiding a potentially
devastating Ulster backline on to the front foot, and his
tactical battle with Jonny Sexton is one to savour, as is
Irish skipper Rory Best’s contest with Sean Cronin in the
middle of the front row. And everywhere you look there
are threats and skills aplenty: Rob Kearney should be
back to full fitness and that particular threat will have – like
so many others – occupied the strategies of Kiss, Dock,
Joe Barakat, Niall Malone and Allen Clarke on the Ulster
coaching staff.
It’s a cliché’ but games are, if not won, certainly shaped
by the performances of the forward units. Devon Toner,