Gunners Vs Ulster

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Re: Gunners Vs Ulster

Postby Wottie on Mon Apr 15, 2019 6:36 pm

The Feral Goat wrote:Both teams may still have plenty to play for, Glasgow don't quite have the home semi tied up and with Munster at home to Connacht on the last day Glasgow may need to win to stay top. We are likely to need to win to hold onto 4th and make the champions cup playoff spot, as Scarlets finish away to Dragons.


With Scarlets all but guaranteed a 5 pointer v Dragons at the Principality (and a superior points difference), I think we are going to need a try BP win in Glasgow don't we?
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Re: Gunners Vs Ulster

Postby Crichton Gunner on Mon Apr 15, 2019 6:37 pm

Hard to see how losing badly to Ulster gives us a better chance to prepare well for Glasgow than beating Ulster would have. Just nonsensical player-speak.

There are 2 meaningful league places still left to play for, and 3 teams going for them. We play away to an in-form Glasgow who need a win to get a home play-off game, Benetton are away to a long losing streak Zebre, and Scarlets away to a feeble Dragons. It would be very, very surprising if Benetton and Scarlets don't both get 5 points from their games. Assuming this happens, we will need a bonus point win in Glasgow to finish 4th. Chances of that happening are realistically nil. We are stuffed, diddy cup again for us next season.
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Re: Gunners Vs Ulster

Postby macdone on Mon Apr 15, 2019 8:07 pm

Wottie wrote:The only positive was the crowd at 7,865, our biggest league attendance (outside of 1872) over the last 3 seasons, and I'm sure for a very long time beyond that? Just a shame there was literally nothing to see!!


That's what makes it so much worse. Beating Munster and Ulster in front of big home crowds would have helped us on and off the pitch. Our player budget will suffer as a result.
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Re: Gunners Vs Ulster

Postby BruceLee on Mon Apr 15, 2019 9:27 pm

Crichton Gunner wrote:Hard to see how losing badly to Ulster gives us a better chance to prepare well for Glasgow than beating Ulster would have. Just nonsensical player-speak.

There are 2 meaningful league places still left to play for, and 3 teams going for them. We play away to an in-form Glasgow who need a win to get a home play-off game, Benetton are away to a long losing streak Zebre, and Scarlets away to a feeble Dragons. It would be very, very surprising if Benetton and Scarlets don't both get 5 points from their games. Assuming this happens, we will need a bonus point win in Glasgow to finish 4th. Chances of that happening are realistically nil. We are stuffed, diddy cup again for us next season.

Tbh we will will finish 9th out of the 14 teams in the league overall,thats a sad state of affairs and to me shows very little improvement whatsoever, back to the Diddy cup i dont think we have the consistency to even win that fantastic, world class trophy!
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Re: Gunners Vs Ulster

Postby liveinhope on Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:38 am

That's pretty shocking given we have most of the Scottish pack (plus Mata and Schoeman).
Wearing my "Scotland" rather than "Edinburgh" hat I'm in a quandary about the final fixture.Almost certainly Edinburgh will need a 5 point BP win (and not just 4 p[oints) to make the 4th place play-off. Ironically if they win,but without a BP,that would likely see them fail to make that play-off but also consign Glasgow to 2nd place in Conf A and a very hard route to the final (extra game,away to Leinster in a semi etc etc).
I'd personally like to see Glasgow get to the final,so with the aforesaid Scotland hat I wouldn't be too upset to see them win the final fixture...
I also wonder if post World Cup a season in the Challenge Cup might just suit us better-and give more chance to rest some of those after a heavy WC schedule and give us more chance to qualify for the following season's Champions Cup?
Ok,maybe a bit heretic and I fully expect to be shot down with these thoughts!
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Re: Gunners Vs Ulster

Postby robdinsdale on Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:50 am

liveinhope wrote:I also wonder if post World Cup a season in the Challenge Cup might just suit us better-and give more chance to rest some of those after a heavy WC schedule and give us more chance to qualify for the following season's Champions Cup?
Ok,maybe a bit heretic and I fully expect to be shot down with these thoughts!


Our squad this season certainly hasn't been able to handle the international callups and the Champions Cup and league campaigns concurrently. Next season we should be aiming at having a real crack at the league, getting the fringe players some experience in the European pool games, and play the maximum amount of knockout rugby at the tail end of the season.
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Re: Gunners Vs Ulster

Postby Tichtheid on Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:54 am

BruceLee wrote:Tbh we will will finish 9th out of the 14 teams in the league overall,thats a sad state of affairs and to me shows very little improvement whatsoever, back to the Diddy cup i dont think we have the consistency to even win that fantastic, world class trophy!



This isn't the whole story, though. We've beaten some good teams and lost to some poor teams.

I see it as more a lack of consistency. We ran Munster close for a semi final spot in the Heineken Cup and it was only experience that won the game for them and lost it for us, we were the better side on the day but that only really matters if we can learn how to win from those situations, same as with the other games we've lost from strong winning positions.

The problem with our game plan is that it works well when we get everything right, there is no room for error, none at all. If the kick chase doesn't work then our press defence doesn't work and then we are on the back foot fighting to get out of our own 22 as opposed to being camped in the opposition red zone for the majority of the game.

Compare that to Glasgow where you know they can and will score from 5m to 95m out. They are never really out of a game because of that, and because the opposition know it they have to play differently against them.
Against us if the opposition pack stay in the game and they cover the box kicks well they have nullified us more or less completely.
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Re: Gunners Vs Ulster

Postby robdinsdale on Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:57 am

Also if Pyrgos has a stinker, and he has had a few recently, with our game plan we are screwed.
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Re: Gunners Vs Ulster

Postby BruceLee on Thu Apr 18, 2019 9:01 am

Tichtheid wrote:
BruceLee wrote:Tbh we will will finish 9th out of the 14 teams in the league overall,thats a sad state of affairs and to me shows very little improvement whatsoever, back to the Diddy cup i dont think we have the consistency to even win that fantastic, world class trophy!



This isn't the whole story, though. We've beaten some good teams and lost to some poor teams.

I see it as more a lack of consistency. We ran Munster close for a semi final spot in the Heineken Cup and it was only experience that won the game for them and lost it for us, we were the better side on the day but that only really matters if we can learn how to win from those situations, same as with the other games we've lost from strong winning positions.

The problem with our game plan is that it works well when we get everything right, there is no room for error, none at all. If the kick chase doesn't work then our press defence doesn't work and then we are on the back foot fighting to get out of our own 22 as opposed to being camped in the opposition red zone for the majority of the game.

Compare that to Glasgow where you know they can and will score from 5m to 95m out. They are never really out of a game because of that, and because the opposition know it they have to play differently against them.
Against us if the opposition pack stay in the game and they cover the box kicks well they have nullified us more or less completely.

I dont disagree with your analysis, but if we dont take our chances and we dont win against weaker teams, we will always be in the same predicament come the end of the season.Unfortunately,it is results that really matter, and in the that respect if we finish 4th or 5th in our conference i would imagine most people would see that as another wasted season,and tbh ,in a world cup year next season it will just get harder.Apart from last season and the two under Andy Robinson we have never really set our league campaign a light,and that to me is the real state of affairs;ok we have shown some improvement ,but this is cancelled out as others have done the same.
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Re: Gunners Vs Ulster

Postby Pitfitter446 on Thu Apr 18, 2019 9:40 am

I’ve felt at we have gone two steps forward, but then one sideways andthen one back, we must consistently be improving in all areas this does not seem to be the case, unfortunately I don’t have have an answer .
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Re: Gunners Vs Ulster

Postby joe soap on Thu Apr 18, 2019 12:23 pm

Tichtheid wrote:This isn't the whole story, though. We've beaten some good teams and lost to some poor teams.

I see it as more a lack of consistency. We ran Munster close for a semi final spot in the Heineken Cup and it was only experience that won the game for them and lost it for us, we were the better side on the day but that only really matters if we can learn how to win from those situations, same as with the other games we've lost from strong winning positions.

The problem with our game plan is that it works well when we get everything right, there is no room for error, none at all. If the kick chase doesn't work then our press defence doesn't work and then we are on the back foot fighting to get out of our own 22 as opposed to being camped in the opposition red zone for the majority of the game.


agree with this really. Inconsistency has been an issue. I think the very limited game plan is as big an issue. I get there was a need (again) to go back to limited basics and play to the perceived strengths, but as the season progressed to the big crunch games, the game plan got tighter - so when it does not fire perfectly the wheels came off. Pyrgos not to his high standards of the rest of the season, and the wheels come off. VDW getting better week by week, looks as if he had been told to go back to the limited game plan, then the wheels come off. The backs attacking slowly but surely improving, then we go back to that limited game plan and the wheels come off.

Cockerill isn't a risk taker, he goes back to his roots as soon as the pressure come on. The pack are good, but not good enough to steamroller better teams, and then the team are not good enough. That should have been obvious much earlier
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Re: Gunners Vs Ulster

Postby The Feral Goat on Thu Apr 18, 2019 12:36 pm

We lack depth outside of front and back row so when our internationals are away/injured there is a pretty big drop off, that gap needs to be closed, either through recruitment or development. Recruitment arguably quicker but costlier, development slower but perhaps more sustainable.

We lack winners I think only Barclay, Pyrgos and Bennett have won anything (Mata Olympic 7s is a bit different), Scotland has not won anything so it is not an experience many of our players have, we need to get over that mental hurdle somehow and believe we can win every match.

Consistency has been a big issue across the season (and within individual games). It must be baffling for the coaches how we can have such variance in our games Toulon away we were excellent yet Kings and Dragons away we were abject. We rarely seem to have a just one player have a bad game it always felt like it was the whole team underperforming.

I am not going to excuse some of our shocking losses this season but the Ulster match hurts more than the Zebre or Kings or Dragons. That was not a weak team missing internationals we put out at home, we just were not at the races in terms of basic skills, game plan or nous.

Tactically the coaches have to move us forward, the better teams with strong defence have easily nullified and countered our limited game plan. My one concern around the incoming Fijians is that it is adding to the plan that they/Kinghorn/Graham/VDM make something from nothing rather than us evolving to a more complete attacking plan that gets these players in the positions to score easier tries rather than wonder tries, hopefully this will be ill-founded.

In the context of the conference this season, Benetton look like they will win with the same number of games as last season and finish with only one more point than last season but in in 3rd rather than 5th. Ulster could finish 2nd with 3 points less than last seasons total with the same number of wins if they get nothing out the last game v Leinster.

Ourselves and Scarlets are the two teams that have slipped back v last season with us possibly acheiving as many as 5 wins less. Notably Kings and Dragons between them have won twice as many matches (6) as last season largely thanks to us!

My gut feeling is we have best squad we have had in a long time, we have to add attacking ambition and structure so we can move forward, and the window to do this is now, the next two seasons, before the likes of Mata and perhaps others move on.
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