Ulster Rugby v La Rochelle

There is always something different about European rugby at Kingspan Stadium, the atmosphere is always quite unique, the expectations on another plain. LUNCHTIME IS A CHAMPION TREAT!

lean in its pickings. To the untrained eye, against Connacht in Galway a white flag appeared to be raised in an embarrassing outing at The Sportsground before Christmas, though spirits were raucously lifted in a thrillingly unexpected try-bonus comeback win over Munster in Belfast. For 40 minutes the crowd, the players and the gods seemed to be at one, and out of the most unpromising and discouraging of starts the bells were ringing in a New Year ripe with promise. That the second half was as spectacularly positive as the first had been desperately inept and despairing might be, in part, Ulster at its most compelling and frustratingly typical this campaign. So, refreshed ambition for the trip to Dublin in search of a win there over Leinster, something which has only happened once in the last 19 years. Alas a familiar tale unfolded as the home side’s all-star cast swept aside Ulster’s early focus with two extravagant tries. This time there would be no resurrection, the hosts coasted to a thumping, six-try victory. We all know about the roller-coaster ride supporting Ulster has become, but the holiday triple-header of Inter-Pros saw other sides too often coast, while rolling over was a sad trademark of the men in white. Les Kiss, the Director of Rugby, has always ‘fronted up’, and he labelled two of the displays in those games as ‘unacceptable’, and in Dublin, surveying the carnage of the RDS, he was clearly trying to keep his emotions and vocabulary in check with his admission that it was time ‘to pull the finger out’. In French there is, perhaps, a more elegant phrase! But elegance is not a priority as the giant forwards of La Rochelle are confronted by an Ulster pack which so often does many things so well, and which certainly has the characters – and character – to forge a winning platform, this early afternoon. Rory is back to lead by example and to infuse the team with some of the cussedness which can go missing, and the skipper will look into the eyes of all 23 players in the home dressing room and

Add in a few ingredients like a lunchtime kick-off, the glamour of French opposition and the bracing chill of a January early afternoon and there is, truly, something very different about a Champions Cup-tie. To add even more import to the occasion this penultimate Pool One game is no ‘dead rubber’, for Ulster enters a vital week in the competition with thoughts of qualification for the quarter-finals very much alive. The stumbling block today is a considerable one: group leaders and Top 14 giants La Rochelle can batten down its own place in the last eight with a win in Belfast, but after those memorable back-to-back victories over Harlequins last month European fever has, at last, returned to warm Ulster fans’ hopes. Failure to reach the key knockout phase in recent years has become all-too-frequent. Some great wins recorded, yes, but consistent qualifying form and results have been elusive, and ambitions in the premier club competition have been regularly diluted, usually before Christmas. It’s because this competition is different, because it has provided great moments, wonderful memories, that we can all gather at Kingspan Stadium early in January, hopes redirected and reasserted. For the hardened realist belief must not be suspended, just restored and recharged:

GUEST ARTICLE: ROD NAWN Clermont and Toulouse have been just two of the French monoliths sent out the gates after meeting Ulster rugby skills and Ulster rugby passions at their zenith. Will La Rochelle, the side having a spectacular battle with Montpellier for Top 14 honours at home, be added to the list of conquests?

In Europe it isn’t always wise to rely on recent domestic formlines, though most teams would hope to enter the Champions Cup fray at this vital, penultimate qualifying stage in confident mood and with solid performances in recent weeks to fuel that little extra something which is such an essential element of mixing it with the best in Europe. Now, that is honestly not the backcloth against which Ulster takes to the pitch today. The so- called ‘festive period’ in Inter-Pro rugby terms was

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