Ulster Rugby v Wasps

Piercing through the Belfast autumn evening the floodlights at Kingspan seem magnetically calling the faithful for another big European night. THE BUZZ THAT IS JUST CHAMPION!

visitors have won four times, though the clubs have been kept apart since those ties in 2001/2. So, hostilities of a sporting kind are renewed with this first, so often crucial, tone-setting opener in the Champions Cup group stage. The clubs did meet at Kingspan in August in what was very much a ‘loosener’ for the new season and Wasps’ 26-15 win will have no bearing on tonight’s contest. Ulster’s form in the reshaped Guinness PRO14 has been more consistent than its rival's untypically erratic results in the Aviva Premiership, but few doubt that Dai Young’s squad will not be right in the heat of battle to repeat and perhaps better its runner-up finish to last season when Exeter Chiefs won a marvellous first title at Twickenham. For Ulster four consecutive wins to start the PRO14 campaign augured well, and new Head Coach Jono Gibbes and assistants Aaron Dundon and Dwayne Peel alongside Niall Malone could claim justifiable satisfaction with the way the players had responded to Director of Rugby Les Kiss’s revamped coaching team. Lions and international summers meant that the strength and depth of the squad was tested and, in the main, found more than fit for purpose. The loss in Zebre was as surprising as it was poor in performance, but last weekend’s first Inter-Pro of the season in Belfast against Connacht did much to restore confidence in the dressing room and in the support which craves success and scented that this was a season when past frustrations could well be swept away. It was far from Ulster at its best, but a dismal first 40 minutes was consigned to the bin and a gritty, Inter-Pro, down-and-dirty Inter-Pro of old followed, and the watching Joe Schmidt and his defence coach Andy Farrell will have noted that some players are particularly eager to combine the blood-and-thunder of defence with the instinct for bold attack.

The throng is drawn by the visit of one of England’s finest and twice winners, Wasps, to take on the Irish Province which was the first to triumph in what is now the Champions Cup. Both sides brim with world-class talent and each also harbours genuine ambitions in their domestic leagues but knows that affirmation is secured with success in the hothouse of Europe, and this month both league and Cup hopes offer a heady competitive mix for the players, managements and – critically – the supporters who provide a very unique electricity on these occasions. We all have our special memories of chill but warming nights as some of the biggest clubs in the game were despatched, memorably Toulouse and Stade Francais on the way to that European Cup win in 1999, and victories over Leicester are stunningly remembered. And this evening’s visitors featured in one of the most spectacular contests in the Pool stages in 2001. Remarkably that game in October remains Ulster’s only competitive win over Wasps, but what a win! It was, genuinely, a thrilling 42-19 victory earned by a team effort of great spirit, and it was the evening in which David Humphreys wrote his name emphatically into the pantheon of ‘greats’. The out-half scored no fewer than 37 of his side’s points that evening, scoring a try, adding the conversion, kicking six penalties and landing four wondrous drop goals in an individual performance which will never be forgotten by those fortunate to witness a genius at work. It’s also worth noting, a certain Tyrone Howe weighed in with a try to complete the breathtaking scoreline! But by way of warning to the home team tonight Wasps, stung by that defeat, got a measure of revenge less than two months later in the return leg in London with a ‘nip-and-tuck’ 36-32 win. In fact, in the five games in European Cup qualification since 1997 tonight’s distinguished

ROD NAWN

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