Cardiff Blues v Ulster Friday 17th February, Cardiff Arms Park (kick off 7.05pm):

First topic message reminder :

Ulster Match Day Squad to face Cardiff, Friday 17th February 2012, Cardiff Arms Park (kick-off 7.05pm)
(15-9): S Terblanche; C Gilroy, N Spence, P Wallace, I Whitten; I Humphreys, R Pienaar;
(1-8): T Court, N Brady, J Afoa, L Stevenson, D Tuohy, C Henry (capt), W Faloon, R Diack;
Replacements (16-23): A Kyriacou, P McAllister, A Macklin, T Barker, M McComish, P Marshall, S Danielli, A D'Arcy

Unavailable due to injury: Jared Payne (achilles), Declan Fitzpatrick (neck), Darren Cave (foot), Pedrie Wannenburg (foot), Johann Muller (calf), Ali Birch (knee)

Cardiff XV: 15 Ben Blair 14 Richard Mustoe 13 Gavin Evans 12 Gavin Henson 11 Tom James 10 Dan Parks 9 Lloyd Williams 8 Xavier Rush 7 Josh Navidi 6 Michael Paterson 5 Paul Tito (c) 4 Cory Hill 3 Scott Andrews 2 Ryan Tyrell 1 John Yapp

Replacaments: 16 T Rhys Thomas 17 Nathan Trevett 18 Ryan Harford 19 Maama Molitika 20 Martyn Williams 21 Richie Rees 22 Ceri Sweeney 23 Chris Czekaj

Score?

Still 21 - 14 Billy.

21-14 Blues. Ulster have been fecking awful and Parks has to be the Scottish 10!

So many poor things about Ulster's performance.
Having said that there has been a difference in Cardiffs intensity in the second half.

Thanks Cari

Martyn Williams has had a very good game, brilliant supporting and link play.

And Thomand

Oh Gav!!! Now if that was Tommy Bowe, he would've been in there with an intercept...

THATS WASNT A KNOCK ON!!!???

Another try created by Henson

I hope your comments are based on watching the whole game Thomond. I know your form.

Come on Blues, deny Ulster the LBP

Parks going for a penalty to rob Ulster of the LBP....and it goes wide.

21 - 14.

MOTM Xavier Rush.

I agree re. Martin Williams. He is still a class act.

Cari wrote:Oh Gav!!! Now if that was Tommy Bowe, he would've been in there with an intercept...

It wasn't Gav's fault. Ref played a very long advantage.

Awful kick by Parks. Really needed to get that one.

Well your boys won in the end Wales

21 - 14. FT.

Cari wrote:

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:

Cari wrote:Asbo - no worries. Just a bit bored with it all, it's been discussed at length already.

Tom James in!!!

Right oh, I'll leave it up to you to share the collective wisdom with me at the end

You can read about it for yourself - I think they started a discussion earlier on in this thread about it, and also here:

https://www.606v2.com/t24140-scrum-v

I hope I don't come across as being funny, but I personally find it tedious as a Cardiffian who's lived up the valleys.

No, not as funny, but I'm not interested in reading all the bickering. If you can be bothered, would appreciate a summary some time.

Good turn around in the second half Henson making a few key passes and interception, backs much better in the second half.

That LBP for Ulster is going to come back to haunt us at the end of the season, I can tell.

2 games at CAP - 2 wins

Asbo - basically there's rivalry between Cardiff city slickers and valleys people. Strangely this isn't the case in football, however, in rugby it's rife (apparently). Pontypridd (a town in the Rhondda valley) comes under the Cardiff Blues region, and they don't like it being called as such because it's Cardiff-centric. there's talk of the Blues playing games at Sardis Road (Ponty's home ground) but the Cardiff bit won't go down well with them.

Shocking game, from an Ulster perspective. Humphreys was absolutely dire, one of the worst games I've seen by him if not the worst. Referee was (as is often the case in every game of rugby nowadays) clueless at the breakdown and at the scrum. Something really does need to be done about those two aspects of the game, and how it is officiated because this is getting a bit ridiculous.

Positives for me were Wallace (easily our best player), Henry (brilliant at the breakdown but faded in parts) and Spence (made some cracking tackles on players nobody else seemed to be able to bring down, hadn't much to offer in attack however). Marshall needs to start at 9 with Pienaar at 10 for me. That was just a cringe worthy performance all around.

Cari wrote:Asbo - basically there's rivalry between Cardiff city slickers and valleys people. Strangely this isn't the case in football, however, in rugby it's rife (apparently). Pontypridd (a town in the Rhondda valley) comes under the Cardiff Blues region, and they don't like it being called as such because it's Cardiff-centric. there's talk of the Blues playing games at Sardis Road (Ponty's home ground) but the Cardiff bit won't go down well with them.

Brilliant, thank you

Surely the time has come for marshall and pienaar to be first choice. That was absolutley appalling from Humphries. There was also a serious number of knock ons.

To be fair to the ref, most of the penalties were penalties, but one or two were maybe a bit harsh. He also clearly missed a lot of infringements by cardiff.

How many knock ons was there by ulster? between 5 and ten anyway.

Diack did well for the score but in general play is a million miles behind Wannenberg.

My biggest complaint is that this was a team that has not been together this past few weeks. Henry Court and Wallace have a serious lack of gametime.

I really think Paddy should retire internationally and concentrate on Ulster.

Henry and Wallace were our best forward and back respectively though clive. Lack of gametime not an excuse- our worst players all started against the Dragons.

Well really I think Wallace has done more than enough to show he should be starting 12 for Ireland, but of course that won't happen so yeah, he should retire and concentrate on Ulster.

Tuohy certainly didn't do his international chances any favours I thought.

Notch wrote:Henry and Wallace were our best forward and back respectively though Clive. Lack of gametime not an excuse- our worst players all started against the Dragons.

Yea Notch this is my point, did the 'worse' players do well last week because they've been on the training ground with each other this past month. And parachuting our fringe international players back in is perhaps disjointing the team a little?

Have you got any explanation in the sudden loss of abilities in the space of seven days?

I actually thought we were worse overall against the Dragons. The problem this week is we didn't improve enough.

Wallace can't retire until after the NZ tour, his central contract runs until then at least. Might even be until the autumn, not sure.

Anyway, he has a few months left before he can make that call. I do hope he is available for Ulster in the coming weeks though.

want you back for good playing at the end of the match. the blues should never have left. we were saying it for a long time before we were forced into that stupid move into that massive shed.

gav had some good touches but he isnt the player he was.

happy with a win.

Notch wrote:Wallace can't retire until after the NZ tour, his central contract runs until then at least. Might even be until the autumn, not sure.

Anyway, he has a few months left before he can make that call. I do hope he is available for Ulster in the coming weeks though.

He was literally the only player who offered anything in attack.

Yeah, unfortunately he was. Not much go-forward from the pack at all. We really miss Wannenburg. I'd like to see Ali Birch start ahead of Faloon next week and hopefully Pedrie in for Diack.

Yeah I don't think Faloon did much either. I'd probably put D'Arcy back at 15 with Terblanche on the wing too. When does Wannenburg get back? I thought Diack as always shown brilliant skills, but in the contact he just isn't good enough. Sad to see really.

Clancy was ok in penalising ulster at the breakdown. The issue comes from the fact he flat out refused to ping cardiff for sealing off. That being said there is no point in dwelling on something you cant fix and cardiff scored two perfectly good trys.

For all those bigging up McLaughlin i feel he got it badly wrong tonight. The humphreys sub should have been made 5 or 10 minutes earlier and certainly after he passed the ball to andrews for the 2nd try. He hesitated and it cost us a yellow card.

Humphreys was shocking and it is time to bench him.
McAllister, Tuohy and Diack showed up well making yards at times but undid that good work by spilling too much ball. Diack did really well for his score but he is a nothing at the breakdown. Henry was superb again.

I thought Gilroy was good last week but he was really quite poor out there, especially in not backing himself after paddys break.

Terblanche had his worst game for us.

I dont know what was going on in the scrum but again i feel Mr. Clancy may have an uncomfortable time with his assessor. Couldnt see Afoa but andrews folded quicker than Tony Buckley on occasions.

Paddy was our best back but he missed two important tackles one of which led to the first try.

All in all i think a fair result with a 4-1 split in points. Ulster need to win every game between now and Munster imo.

Rory_Gallagher wrote: Referee was (as is often the case in every game of rugby nowadays) clueless at the breakdown and at the scrum. Something really does need to be done about those two aspects of the game, and how it is officiated because this is getting a bit ridiculous.

Gilroy displays zero confidence in his own ability to finish these days. Or just with ball in hand in general. He is so strong and quick, but he needs to believe in himself. Get more involved. After the Wallace break he had a clear path to the line and he passed it back inside! It was a pretty bizarre call. I thought Spence was excellent in defence, taking out the huge carriers that Cardiff had, but needed to show more in attack and make more clean breaks. Saw him trying to do a forward's job a lot today, possibly because we were so bad at the breakdown.

Morgannwg wrote:

Rory_Gallagher wrote: Referee was (as is often the case in every game of rugby nowadays) clueless at the breakdown and at the scrum. Something really does need to be done about those two aspects of the game, and how it is officiated because this is getting a bit ridiculous.

If you honestly thought there was consistency in those two aspects of that game, I don't have a clue what game you were watching.

I find it hard to be too critical of spence. He rarely got the ball in attack. In fairness to cardiff they played a lot more rugby with the wind than we did. We kicked far too much ball in the first half especially as Parks range would have been severely compromised.

No, Rory... I actually agree with you. However, the Welsh are not allowed to mention the performance of the officials without getting told we are sore losers, etc... so on and so fourth. The standard in 6 Nations hasn't been great either, it is becoming an issue.

So now us Welsh and you finally see eye to eye. No need to thank us for pointing out something obvious weeks and months before you had noticed.

Yeah and the times he did get it we were on the back foot. Though as I said he was our best player in terms of defensive duties today. He put in some very important tackles and didn't seem to struggle at all with Rush/Patterson etc unlike the majority of our players.

Morgannwg wrote:No, Rory... I actually agree with you. However, the Welsh are not allowed to mention the performance of the officials without getting told we are sore losers, etc... so on and so fourth. The standard in 6 Nations hasn't been great either, it is becoming an issue.

So now us Welsh and you finally see eye to eye. No need to thank us for pointing out something obvious weeks and months before you had noticed.

No no - there is a difference Morgan between that and that Scarlets thread yonks ago, where the ref was downright blamed for the loss. Which is ridiculous. Ulster were absolutely shocking today, one of the worst performances I've seen, but the referee also had a pretty terrible time officiating it. I am making no excuses for the loss other than our failure to play good rugby.

I think Paterson should have been MOTM rather than Rush.

Last season our most consistanly brilliant play was Pretorious with the 6 shirt, this season it has been Paterson playing 6 while Pretorious has been out.

Paterson was everywhere today, I don't think I have ever seen him miss a tackle, he carries well and is phenomenal in the air at lineouts and restarts.

wales606 wrote:I think Paterson should have been MOTM rather than Rush.

Last season our most consistanly brilliant play was Pretorious with the 6 shirt, this season it has been Paterson playing 6 while Pretorious has been out.

Paterson was everywhere today, I don't think I have ever seen him miss a tackle, he carries well and is phenomenal in the air at lineouts and restarts.

Paterson was monstrous today I thought. Definitely my choice for MOTM too. I guess he wasn't just as flashy as Rush, but in the tight exchanges he really did make a huge difference.

Paterson would be a good call.

Paterson is easily player of the season so far.

Is he welsh? What age?

NZ, uncapped.

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

wales606 wrote:I think Paterson should have been MOTM rather than Rush.

Last season our most consistanly brilliant play was Pretorious with the 6 shirt, this season it has been Paterson playing 6 while Pretorious has been out.

Paterson was everywhere today, I don't think I have ever seen him miss a tackle, he carries well and is phenomenal in the air at lineouts and restarts.

Paterson was monstrous today I thought. Definitely my choice for MOTM too. I guess he wasn't just as flashy as Rush, but in the tight exchanges he really did make a huge difference.

Agree Wales. I thought Martin Williams was much more influential than Rush who has little more in his armour than just "rushing". Paterson was superb.

Notch wrote:NZ, uncapped.

He was due to be named in Henry's squad for the 3Ns at the end of his last season there, but got injured. He is showing that form for the Blues this season.

That was a pretty depressing second half for Ulster.

I agree that Humph was poor. He just didn't even try to tackle at times.

Well done Cardiff Blues.

Xavier Rush made an amazing number of yards for you. Best I've seen him in a while.

Rava wrote:

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

wales606 wrote:I think Paterson should have been MOTM rather than Rush.

Last season our most consistanly brilliant play was Pretorious with the 6 shirt, this season it has been Paterson playing 6 while Pretorious has been out.

Paterson was everywhere today, I don't think I have ever seen him miss a tackle, he carries well and is phenomenal in the air at lineouts and restarts.

Paterson was monstrous today I thought. Definitely my choice for MOTM too. I guess he wasn't just as flashy as Rush, but in the tight exchanges he really did make a huge difference.

Agree Wales. I thought Martin Williams was much more influential than Rush who has little more in his armour than just "rushing". Paterson was superb.

Paterson, Williams and Rush all had really good game.

Martyn was very good linking in the first half and speeding up possession in the 2nd half - best he has played since the start of last season (the CAP effect?) Rush was also back to his best and smashed out of tackles well. Paterson is a machine.