Ulster v Dragons Friday 10th February 2012 KO 7.05pm

First topic message reminder :

So amid the Bowe signing, McLaughlin leaving and Ferris citing, its back to Pro 12 this weekend. The squad should be announced at lunch-time and I will update when that happens.

Ulster team to face Dragons, Friday 10th February 2012, Ravenhill (kick-off 7.05pm)

(15-9): A D'Arcy; C Gilroy, I Whitten, P Wallace, S Terblanche; I Humphreys, R Pienaar;
(1-8): C Black, A Kyriacou, J Afoa (capt), L Stevenson, D Tuohy, M McComish, W Faloon, R Diack;

Replacements (16-23): N Brady, P McAllister, A Macklin, T Barker, A Birch, P Marshall, N Spence, S Danielli



Dragons 25 man squad

Backs

Martyn Thomas, Jamie Smith, Aled Brew, Adam Hughes, Andy Tuilagi, Tom Riley, Ashley Smith, Lewis Robling, Jason Tovey, Joe Bedford, Wayne Evans,

Forwards

Gavin Thomas, Darren Waters, Rhys Jenkins, Hugo Ellis, Tom Brown, Jevon Groves, Adam Jones, Rob Sidoli, Phil Price, Nathan Williams, Nathan Buck, Dan Way, Steve Jones, Rhys Buckley.

Rava wrote:Anyway that's not why I'm here. I just popped in to let you know there is a 30 minute programme on Downtown Radio at 12.00 Noon covering the Guinness 22 Q&A Event at the Errigle on Thursday Night. If you are interested.

Cheers Rava

Quick question, does anyone think McAllister has the potential to replace Healy eventually for Ireland?

I think in a few years they'll be battling each other for the shirt, albeit we don't really do that in Ireland. We tend to choose a player and stick with him regardless of form.

McAllister is a great prospect but people forget just what a good player Healy really is. We're lucky to have two very young props with great ability in that position.

Well I think Healy is one of the best looseheads in the world, but McAllister I think also has bags of potential. What about Macklin as the next decent Irish tight-head?

Rory_Gallagher wrote:Well I think Healy is one of the best looseheads in the world, but McAllister I think also has bags of potential. What about Macklin as the next decent Irish tight-head?

Rory I wouldn't run from the Macklin comment. He too has potential and couldn't have a better role model for the next year and a bit than John Afoa. Both McAllister and Macklin have great futures if they are handled properly.

I was running from the fact that decent tight-heads and Ireland don't tend to go together.. I do hope Macklin can change that though. I think he is great in the loose, but that is the problem, we need him to be great in the scrum. Hope to see he and McAllister eventually come through as key players for Ulster in the future.

I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing a Wallace-Spence centre partnership next week anyway. Would I be right in saying there will be no 6N games next weekend?

So hopefully we will be able to start with Henry, Tuohy, Wallace and potentially Tom Court.

Henry and Wallace bound to be a bit rusty. How long before Cave's back?

Yeah there is always a gap after the first 2 rounds, and before the 4th and 5th. I'm with you there Notch, hope Spence really pushes Cave for the 13 shirt again.

Rory_Gallagher wrote:Quick question, does anyone think McAllister has the potential to replace Healy eventually for Ireland?

Replace Healy not a chance,but I do think he has the potential to challenge him.Healy is going to be world class imo and for a prop of his age to have the amount of caps,medals and top level experience is almost unheard of in the modern game.McAllister looks to have bags of talent too so in a couple of years there could be a good fight for the 1 jersey.

Yep, hopefully so sore. Healy is certainly going to be hard to budge but McAllister is going to be a top player as well down the track. We're lucky at loosehead and terrible at tighthead!

I wish somebody would put longer studs in Gilroys boots. Seems to loose his footing a fair bit during games.
Just saying!

That's actually true, he does fall over a lot. I don't think its unfair he was left out of the Wolfhounds tbh. He still has a bit to go. Delighted to have him in the team and scoring tries, but he's still learning. No need to rush him.

Think Cave was ruled out for six weeks Willy, so next week will be a bit early. I'd imagine Wallace and Henry will play. The Ireland coaches will want the squad players who haven't had a shot to get some gametime under their belts.

Good play this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpZmk3moc2U

Some good highlights of Ulster game's there for anyone who missed the action.

The club believe both McAllister and Macklin have what it takes to get to the top.

Someone mentioned Roberts being the best 12 in the World.
No way Nonu by a country mile.

I was lurking on Planet rugby there as there is a thread on the U20 game. Apparently Henderon and Farrell were immense

Have to agree with Nonu.

Stand, what a win for the 20s!! Henderson did well last week too.

looks like a real prospect notch. as does farrell. might see henderson in and around squads next season hopefully

Henderson will have a development contract next year I reckon

Huge win for the u20s. Imagine the confidence and the ego boost that will give them.

Wonder what the weather was like in Grenoble. No harm but I find it really bad in this day and age that an international is called off because of the weather and so late in the day. Disgraceful. (not saying it is the wrong decision mind). As always it will be the fans that get screwed over.

geoff999rugby wrote:Henderson will have a development contract next year I reckon

Great news. Went to school with him, he has a real rugby brain to go with his physicality.

Faloon was nothing special - none of the backrow were but they looked nonplussed by the ref's decisions the whole game. McComish missed one ridiculous tackle but otherwise ran really good support lines and showed good passing and offloading to keep the moves going. Diack just looks too soft. Birch was a step down from Faloon but probably benefited from the gametime.

Gavin Thomas was the best backrow on the pitch

I agree with aukster but credit to Faloon he made a couple of try's with his link play. His offloading was superb.

You can talk about Faloon and McComishs link play, but apart from showing that in patches (and their support play made the Pienaar try- a fine, fine score) the backrow really were substandard.

If we sit here and chat about their link play, it's reminiscent of people praising Tony Buckley for his carrying. Yes, it's a positive and good to highlight it; but it doesn't change the fact that they were severely shafted at their main job and hence put the team at a big disadvantage. For Buckley that would be the scrum, for our backrows it was the breakdown.

The referee wasn't great in this area but there were a LOT of times were our ball carrier went into contact or to ground and the first two lads there were Dragons players. If the breakdown is a mess, and the ref isn't clued in, the decisions will go to the team who gets their first. For all the ran some good lines they were never really in support of the ball carrier to get in and secure the ball at the ruck and our fluency suffered. We coughed up some VERY soft turnovers and we generated no momentum in phase play.

The other main negative is the complete lack of physical presence from, well, anyone in the backrow. At all. Hopefully next week Henry is available. He's a real scrapper, a relatively tough player, and we desperately missed that.

Anyone know anything about Wannenburg and Mullers injuries? When they might return?

To be fair though Notch I don't think any of us can say we're surprised by your last point. Faloon is class act for me. I've watched him a lot at hinch in the past and talent wise I've always though he's up there. Such a shame he can't find any consistency.

I find him a frustrating player. He's very talented but has struggled to make the step up to this level of rugby; he sort of drifts through games, making occasionally very good contributions but never really influencing the game the way you want.

He's fallen into a vicious circle now of (rightly) not being part of the first choice team hence struggling to get consistency into his game, hence struggling to be picked...

Honest view; I struggle to see him being anything more than a squad player long term.

Watched that second try again.

RUCK - Pienaar - Kyriacou - Humphreys - Faloon - Spence - Gilroy - Faloon - McComish - D'Arcy - Pienaar - TRY.

Nine passes/offloads, eight players involved.

After watching the game I thought we were good for the points. A bit sloppy at times but ultimately a pretty good performance and the better team.

Pienaar's try was sensational and Faloon was the key with his link play. Classy player but not in the top 4 back rowers at the club right now due to Henry's form.

Spence had a great game and its good to see him starting to find his form again.

Unbelievable scenes. A try worthy of Barcelona.

It's a physical thing. Faloon lacks the body frame to dominate the modern breakdown like.. say pocock.
He's quite narrow shoulder to shoulder & hip to hip. And work rate /conditioning can only do so much.

I don't agree with that at all honestly. Richie McCaw is never the biggest guy on the park, but man is he tough. It is about the attitude. Also Faloon looks much bigger than he has in previous seasons.

Whilst i wont disagree that our backrow were poor i do think the ref has to take a massive share of the blame here. I wasnt certain what interpretation he was using.

For instance when faloon did arrive first and get his hands on the ball instead of penalising the Dragons for not releasing he binned faloon for not releasing despite the fact he didnt tackle anyone. I agree that the tackling of our backrow was poor though.

Faloon is our 4th choice backrow and will most likely drop down the pecking order next year with Wilson and possibly Kaino arriving (i see Payne has been tweeting him).

To be honest Chris Henry has made the 7 shirt his own in a way that i dont think anyone could have forseen. I think he has been exceptional lately.

I think Payne is having a bit of craic is all Stand.

Standulstermen wrote:ackrow and will most likely drop down the pecking order next year with Wilson and possibly Kaino arriving (i see Payne has been tweeting him).

To be honest Chris Henry has made the 7 shirt his own in a way that i dont think anyone could have forseen. I think he has been exceptional lately.

Whilst I totally agree with that, I think Henry lacks the pace of a genuine openside and He was exposed a bit against Clermont at times. Don't get me wrong he has been exceptional this season and has nailed down the 7 shirt with his all action displays but Faloon is still a great option to have in the squad because of his extra pace and handling ability. He doesn't have the physicality and workrate of Henry but sometimes that extra guile and linking ability comes in handy.

Henry must start somewhere in the backrow I think. He is still probably best at 8, and I still want to see Ferris, Faloon and Henry get a game together, but it is unlikely.

Henry is starter no doubt about it and has been a revelation at 7 this season. No question he is 1st choice 7 right now.

Yeah, he deserves it. Hope to see him feature for Ireland at some point also. It is nice to talk to some sane posters again also, the welsh have taken over the international board and it is hard to have any sort of reasonable debate

...missed the game today, was it any good? Is it worth watching on IPlayer?

One of the best games I have seen in a while for sure! Definitely worth watching. Some really talented players on the pitch today, from both sides. Just don't go on these forums any day that the welsh play, unless it is to say "well done, you are the best team in the world".

Also have to say this is by far the best 6 nations to date, and we aren't even half way. Excluding the cancellation of the Ireland match of course

Ha ha funny I was just thinking how little I'm enjoying it so far! ....cool will check that game out...still gutted about the Ireland game being postponed!

I'm peed off as an irish fan, for obvious reasons, but I think some of the matches have been really really exciting. Today was the best one yet IMO. Watch your man Hogg in particular for Scotland, to me he looks a real talent, adds some much needed flair to the scottish team. Some of the scottish forwards are immense too.