Ulster Rugby vs Leinster

IT’S ABOUT LOOKING AFTER BUSINESS

by ROD NAWN

FRIDAY night in late August at Kingspan Stadium, a familiar and fierce rivalry is about to be renewed, but this evening’s ‘derby’ with Leinster is shaped by a plethora of out-of-the-ordinary circumstances.

The competitive Guinness PRO12 season is just two weeks away, so taking on Leinster in Belfast is certainly match-hardening preparation, as is next Friday’s trip to Goldenacre to play Edinburgh. Both these games are important to the respective managements as they consider their formations for the business to come of chasing titles and trophies in the ‘regular’ season and in the Champions Cup, where Saracens, Toulouse and competition debutants Oyannax constitute a considerable European challenge. But, of course, Ulster gets its season underway tonight against the background of the forthcoming World Cup through September and October, and with the Irish squad for the tournament about to be honed down to just 31 players. Head Coach Neil Doak must take credit for fulfilling part of his remit to the national cause by supplying so many quality players to the fancied squad Joe Schmidt is currently ‘auditioning’. Supporters will hope that the contingent from Ulster will be part of the 31-man panel which will be finalised at the end of the month, and Doak and his assistants know their task is to manage their priority with the resources left available. In short, some relatively unfamiliar names will feature for the Province over the next two warm-up games. It will fall to the remaining core of senior players – Rob Herring, Paul Marshall, Louis Ludik, Ian Humphreys, Franco van der Merwe and Wiehahn Herbst for instance – to offer a stable, experience platform on to which young talents such as Stuart McCloskey, Sam Arnold, Rory Scholes, Peter Nelson, Sean Reidy, Clive Ross, Frank Taggart and a clutch of others on the brink of the first-team squad can jump with confidence. For the two friendlies, and for up to six matches in the PRO12, Ulster’s World Cup hopefuls will not be available, their focus properly on the William Webb Ellis Trophy. That means opportunity for so many players, and it also challenges the management skills of Doak, Allen Clarke, the newly-arrived Joe Barakat and skills coach Niall Malone. They know they have genuine quality in the ranks, much of it relatively and deliberately unheralded, and it has been carefully nurtured with the future in mind. Into many of their hands Ulster will offer the chance to give the club a positive, challenging start to what is shaping up to be another fascinating and demanding year. And though the team sheets – because not just Ulster faces up to a new campaign without its internationals – will sometimes strike an inquisitive squad with the fans, these players will hopefully soon become recognised

as integral members of a powerful and well-balanced squad. When the Ospreys arrive at the Kingspan in two weeks for the PRO12 ‘opener’ the Ulster side will have been prepared thoroughly, skilfully and professionally to launch a new season. And the players in the matchday squad will have had a message drilled firmly into their minds: that they are Ulster’s first-choices, they perform in no-one’s shadow, that they have the ability and the responsibility to replicate the form which has seen Ulster come so tantalisingly close to silverware in recent seasons. Barakat’s arrival on a two-year deal promises to refresh the coaching set-up, and his international experience with the Waratahs, with the Fiji national side, and his fine record in the increasingly impressive and combative Japanese game as an expert in defence and the set piece brings a new eye and an original voice to the management. Neil Doak wants him to have a particular focus on the collision aspect of the modern game, and with the special expertise Clarke, Malone and the Head Coach himself bring, Ulster’s backroom team looks to have had a good pre-season and is concentrated on providing a winning, positive structure within which the ‘new boys’ can flourish. And this evening’s opponents, Leinster, will all-too- readily recognise the very particular hurdles and the opportunities posed by this World Cup autumn. It’s perhaps a signal of the club’s recent pre-eminence in the PRO12 and in Europe that last Saturday no fewer than 14 Leinster players were in Ireland’s matchday 23 against Scotland in Dublin! The national side has relied heavily on a province which would count the last couple of seasons as disappointing when contrasted to back-to-back PRO12 titles and a decade when the European Cup was regularly brought home to the RDS. The appointment of Leo Cullen as Head Coach this week confirms the high regard in which the former captain and Ireland international is held, and after a year as forwards coach he’ll be delighted to land the top job. But he’ll want to show he’s there on merit, and he has Kurt McQuilkin permanently on board, and Girvan Dempsey overseeing the backs, while manager Guy Easterby makes up the core of a wise management team. Cullen always regarded games with Ulster as important – his debut as ‘the man’ will make tonight even more intriguing as he matches up against Doak who has served a more complete ‘apprenticeship.’

ROD NAWN

ROD NAWN

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