27 / 68
www.
ULSTERRUGBY
.com
25
ARTICLE BY ROD NAWN
FREELANCE JOURNALIST
AND SPORTS ENTHUSIAST
@RODNAWN1
ROD NAWN
coaching team this week. The skipper Cory Hill is
a Welsh international lock who loves to make his
presence felt in the setpiece, and hooker Elliott
Dee and South African prop Brok Harris provide
just a hint of a steely and resilient front row.
Behind the scrum there is real competition
at scrum-half, with Sarel Pretorius the man in
possession, and the half-back partner to one
of the game’s most colourful figures, the hugely
talented but surely unfulfilled Gavin Henson. At
35, Henson is showing glimpses of the gifts which
once made him the organiser-in-chief of the Wales
backline, his kicking is as accurate and inventive
as ever and if he’s lost a yard of pace he still sees
opportunities which others cannot even imagine.
Tyler Morgan is an international centre and winger
Hallam Amos has played for Wales and is a prolific
try-scorer, as he showed against Connacht with
an early strike.
One player who’ll hope to be fit and available to
feature tonight is South African fullback Zane
Kirchner, very familiar and potent figure for
Leinster for so many years. So the Dragons may
be developing an ‘X Factor’ with such a sprinkling
of experienced but proven players but Jackman
will want his team to set the tone with some early,
exhausting tussles up front.
So, the Dragons may be embarking on a defining
chapter in a rich and not always harmonious
history but in this new, still rather complex
reshaping of the Guinness PRO14, the club is
determined on a course which will at last bring
silverware to Rodney Parade and which will fire
its long-held European ambitions. To reach the
knockout stages of the Champions Cup for the
first time ever is a target in the medium-term, and
to even have access to that Jackman’s side must
defy its league history and claim one of the top
three spots in Conference B.
Ulster’s immediate challenge is to stall the
visitors’ hopes but, more pertinently, call upon the
character, the belief and the concentration on the
game’s principles to ensure that last weekend’s
superb exhibition of all these can be the template
for what has the potential to be a key stage in the
growth of this group of players and coaches.
Individually there has been much to admire,
especially in the displays of the newly-arrived
half-back pairing of Christian Leali’ifano and John
Cooney, a scrum-half whose relish for the battle
has already established him as a fans’ favourite at
Kingspan.
Kiss and Gibbes have managed to give ‘game
time’ to much of the squad and there are other
strong personalities yet to be integrated over
the coming weeks. The focus will be on winning
games, a habit beloved of supporters, and with
Zebre and Connacht to face before Europe calls
in October the next few weeks are – like so many
before! – very important.
If the stadium can be as passionate a cauldron as
it became a week ago, if the players respond to
situations with the same positive instincts, then the
Dragons will not at all relish the game tonight.
The fans were rewarded last Friday evening,
their faith can be underpinned with another
demonstration that Ulster has rediscovered its
mojo.