Ulster Rugby vs Leinster

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.

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,

ROD NAWN

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