Edinburgh v Ulster - 30th April - 7.35pm

[robdinsdale]

I'm feeling somewhat similar to how I feel before an International. Excited anticipation and nerves. This game is huge for us, and stadium should be jumping.

URC is definitely providing some meaningful games with the business end of the season being quite competitive.

[TheSmidge]

Honestly not sure whether I'm more annoyed with Whitehouse (could you referee both sides equally at the ruck please?) or Stephen Ferris (yes, we know you don't think much of Edinburgh)?

[macdone]

Honestly not sure whether I'm more annoyed with Whitehouse (could you referee both sides equally at the ruck please?) or Stephen Ferris (yes, we know you don't think much of Edinburgh)?

Ferris and Barclay know how to suck the fun out of any game.

[macdone]

Love Whitehouse checking if Bennett was offside from his own kick.

[The Feral Goat]

Gutted, if we take lessons from only one game this season let it be that one.

Irrespective of how honking the officials may have been, we had plenty of chances.

Great atmosphere at the DAM. Good Ulster support across for the game, suitably tense to the death.

Edit: should add cherry looked broken, rambo and lang looked bad as well.

[The Feral Goat]

Love Whitehouse checking if Bennett was offside from his own kick.

Need to rewatch but live it felt he had no clue about any offside so not surprised by that.

[Tichtheid]

That loss was down to us. Ulster did practically nothing with the ball, i haven't seen the stats but it looked like we had overwhelming amounts of possession and probably territory too.

The non-refereeing of the offside line is not why we lost, we lost because we were inaccurate and should have put an average Ulster side away quite handily, we butchered at least four try-scoring opportunities, sitters, if we'd put the ball through the hands, they didn't need magic to finish them off, just basic heads up rugby and passing skills.

Really frustrating, we were the better team in many parts of the game.

Cherry wins the Caulie Lug for me on tonight alone, it looked like his arm was seriously inured but he hit lineout after lineout after getting bandaged up.

Muncaster has to be a starter from now on

[mike04]

Agree re Muncaster. We got go forward as soon as he was introduced. I assume a schoemann will be rested next week so will be weak for wasps minus both tonight’s hookers and him.
Lang showed how important he is to us by not being there. No other centre has the skills and hands he has.

[Tichtheid]

Agree re Muncaster. We got go forward as soon as he was introduced. I assume a schoemann will be rested next week so will be weak for wasps minus both tonight’s hookers and him.
Lang showed how important he is to us by not being there. No other centre has the skills and hands he has.

I thought Mark Bennett was terrific tonight, he dragged us back in to that match on his own, on both sides of the ball.

Dean did pretty well too, but I do think Lang is very very good, if made of glass.

[TheSmidge]

That loss was down to us. Ulster did practically nothing with the ball, i haven't seen the stats but it looked like we had overwhelming amounts of possession and probably territory too.

The non-refereeing of the offside line is not why we lost, we lost because we were inaccurate and should have put an average Ulster side away quite handily, we butchered at least four try-scoring opportunities, sitters, if we'd put the ball through the hands, they didn't need magic to finish them off, just basic heads up rugby and passing skills.

Really frustrating, we were the better team in many parts of the game.

Cherry wins the Caulie Lug for me on tonight alone, it looked like his arm was seriously inured but he hit lineout after lineout after getting bandaged up.

Muncaster has to be a starter from now on

I hate to be THAT GUY but poor refereeing can influence the outcome of matches and this is one of those instances.

Yes, if we had taken one of the breakaway chances in the first half then the result would also have been different. However, one of those was halted with a pen against Jaco for holding on when the Ulster tackler made no clear release before clamping on the ball. In other words, it’s a pen the other way and a probable yellow card.

Whitehouse’s repeated failure to police the offside line all evening (even Stephen Ferris cottoned onto it by about 20 mins in) was utterly blatant. I’d be surprised if they were onside at any of the rucks on the last couple of passages of play camped on their goal line. There is a reason their defence was able to withstand the onslaught: they were cheating.

And this is all before we get to the actual refereeing of the breakdown where we were never given the chance to compete nor the opportunity to protect our own ball the way that Ulster were. Then there was the final maul penalty before their try where Schoemann is pulled out of maul by N Ulster player, thrown onto the ground, the mail goes over him and comes down. And somehow that’s a pen to them!

Every time I’ve seen him referee, Whitehouse has consistently shown a massive naïveté to what’s really going on in a game and last night was no different. I do not buy the thought m, in the era of professional referees, that we should adapt or get on the right side of the officials during a game. They should just apply the laws of the game. And I’ve not even discussed the potential red card (it could have been as the impact of Herring’s involvement was not as great given their involvement was pretty much instantaneous).

Anyway, rant over. I’m hurting because my team lost our biggest game of the season and the refereeing was incredibly one-sided.

Agree on Muncaster, what a huge impact.

Cherry: made of steel.

[JDCSR]

Cherry is the best hooker in Scotland.

A fine head of hair and he'd have a lot more caps.

[liveinhope]

Like "TheSmidge" I'm still hurting but boy what an atmosphere last night.Can't believe the difference to watching at BTM-incredible support that did everything but push us over for that last two or three inches in that last five minutes!
It would be incredibly disappointing after all the good work this season we don't make it into the Champions Cup next year (so only a win against Glasgow will do).

[Tichtheid]

It was a sair ane to lose right enough, but our set piece stats were better than Ulster’s we had overwhelming territory and possession numbers, Ulster gave away 13 penalties to our 12 and they also copped two yellow cards, we were playing against 14 for twenty minutes.

I suppose the stats must tell coaches that you are more likely to score from hammering away at the line than shipping it wide, but it just wasn’t working at the end there and we should gave tried something different, just as Mark Bennett did

[Pitfitter446]

It was a sair ane to lose right enough,
I suppose the stats must tell coaches that you are more likely to score from hammering away at the line than shipping it wide, but it just wasn’t working at the end there and we should gave tried something different, just as Mark Bennett did

We were screaming at them to try it out wide, banging your head aff a wall constantly doesn't work, especially when the offside defenders have the 'REF?s' help, get it wide for a change, watching Hoyland wave his arm forlornly knowning he isnae going to get the ball is disheartening, for us and him probably.
BUT, we should have had it done in the first half, no mistake.
A whole match listening to Ulster fans chanting near us was only helped by leaving my hearing aids at home, I didn't bite once, only asked when they stopped at one time "Have you forgotten the words?", jings they are PaulHoniss annoying, between the constant chanting and the psih they spout.
Ah well big games to come, onward and upward, all the best to those in the treatment room.

[Impega]

There was a horrible inevitability at the very end that the ball would be spilled, held up over the line or turned over. It backed up my feeling that our forwards are just that slight step down from the really top teams in terms of being physically huge and abrasive enough (Schoeman aside, perhaps).

Ben Whitehouse was very poor - as usual - but ultimately the match was lost due to our own inaccuracies and poor decisions. Crosbie choosing not to put Hoyland in early on was particularly bad.

Finally, and it has been said here numerous times, Kinghorn's kicking to touch is killing us. Absolutely killing us. Way too many lineouts are being taken from 15-20 metres further back than they should be, and that is crucial (not that the driving maul was very effective last night anyway).