phatguerilla wrote: I don't want to complain about decisions or lack of ref decisions too much because like others I don't think the result would be in doubt regardless. However can someone explain to me how/why there was not crossing and/or obstruction called on Pienaar when he passed to Trimble? It seemed to me that he did both. Cheers.

balls.ie/rugby/video-ruan-pienaar-with-a...r-ulster-last-night/

It's not crossing, it's a switch (one player coming inside to draw the defence inside, the other on a slightly later run pushing outward to catch the defence wrong footed). Well executed piece of play and not obstruction in any manner...

Highlights:

Naoupu Try:

Olding Try:

Trimble Try:

Vainikolo Try:

Best Try:

Bowe Try:

Payne Try:

Thanks for clarifying I thought he blocked poolman's opportunity to reach trimble on time but I was probably being overly critical, poolman would still have had to make up a few yards before making the tackle.

All I see is good skill, he drew a defender and passes

I don't want to complain about decisions or lack of ref decisions too much because like others I don't think the result would be in doubt regardless. However can someone explain to me how/why there was not crossing and/or obstruction called on Pienaar when he passed to Trimble? It seemed to me that he did both. Cheers.

balls.ie/rugby/video-ruan-pienaar-with-a...r-ulster-last-night/

Olding reminds me of Gordon D'Arcy in his prime, he has shown some incredible footwork in the last couple of games. Ulster are spoilt for choice at inside center with him and Luke Marshall.

On Poolman, one aspect of his game that I'd be critical of is his positioning on the wing, he tends to come too far forward and leave a huge gap behind himself. Pienaar exploited it a couple of times with some clever kicking, it's something he really needs to work on. I wonder if it indicates a mentality that would be better suited to center?

I thought that Stuart Olding looked very good. We have some good young players coming through, none more so than Robbie, but young Olding looks very good. If we have our best U20's going to JWC later, we would have a great team. I assume that some will go on tour with the seniors or the emerging squad.

Didn't get to go to the game but watched some of it on BBC Ulster :sick:

Overall, we have to put into perspective the challenge we faced last night in terms of the quality of the opposition and their budget. Ulster are , this season, up there with the very best in Europe and for the guts of 60 minutes it was toe to toe stuff. Thought Poolman, Fetu, George and Griffin (Thank God) were superb last night, really really good. Faloon was badly badly missed at 7 & it would have been great to see him going at full tilt into his old mates. Think Robbie would have been an interesting cast member to last night's proceedings also . Overall, I though the ref looked to have a pretty decent game for a change - the usual few questionable calls, but overall OK.

We can have no arguments about the result. In pro sport, the strongest usually prevail and they just had more 'strong' players than we had. We made some silly , tired errors at a time in the game which were crucial. No time to recover . I wouldn't hammer the lads, it was a brave performance from Connacht. To beat that strenght of an Ulster team, we needed every one , every player on our side playing to the max. That didn't happen last night but we move on and we learn............

Onwards and upwards and season ticket 2013/14 here I come............ :woohoo:

I think the bench was the difference on the night. Ulster were able to spring the like's of Afoa who made a big impact while our guys were beginning to run out of gas. Thought Fetu was great and looked dangerous every time. I saw this live so I had a different perspective than you guys watching this on TV (which was why I enjoyed hearing your guys thoughts). I had a pretty bad vantage point over on the Main stand so can't contribute anything new except there was great atmosphere at the ground. Stand up for the Ulster fans!

The scoreboard was a bit hard on us in the end I thought. I wouldn't be too harsh on the defensive lapses for the first 20 mins, it was one of those crazy games. They were just as fragile defensively as we were. As was pointed out beforehand the quality of their bench and the quality we were missing through injury on ours was their trump card. Nevermind Afoa and Muller, Henderson is a gem. Though he was great in the wolfhounds game, but he was even more impressive last night. It's not just power, he has incredible mobility for his height.

Nikora's balls up for the 4th was two bad kicks, not one. Can't for the life of me see why Parks was hauled off that early, even if he hadn't covered himself in glory either, there must be something behind it. Fetu'u was fantastic. Running over Rory Best and someone else (can't remember) in the one run. It was his sort of game though, plenty broken play. Griff, Swifty and George deserve a mention too.

Had to laugh at Mul and Gav at different stages trying to get a grip on Nick Williams. He's like a walking blimp.

the bad :

- lack of focus : even if Nikora's kick was awful, Handerson shoudn't have been alone to catch it and run

- following of the phases : we're still too slow and inefficent at the breakdown, Marmion was, as always, isolated and it cost us at least 10 points like somebody notices above

- erratic defence : Pat will have a lot of work to do, especially with the backs (Murphy), too many missed tackles, always stepping back to compensate the lateness

the good :

- Ah you was ok even at scrumtime against Afoa and gained a lot of ground ball in hands

- Grif back to the level as it was said

- Georges was great too

- the 5 meters-line defence is pretty solid as it was against Munster and Quins away

- and last but not least, I think Poolman is a worthwile choice, more than a project, a masterpiece of our team right now (defence and attack, always clean)

salmson wrote: I thought if anything Fitzpatrick gave us the rub of his decisions last night. In the first half he missed a high tackle and from the subsequent ruck gave us a turnover penalty, in the second half he missed a stonewall yellow for Muldoon for interfering with a player off the ball (we might make an openside of him yet) and I thought he showed extraordinary forebearance to Rodney in not awarding a penalty try against us.

If he'd given those sort of decisions against Connacht we'd be furious.

Other thoughts from the game:

Our defending was the worst since Scarlets were here last autumn. Rossie's post hit the nail on the head there.

I was surprised at how good Diack was (I know a few people here are big fans of his) but I thought Henry wasn't great and Cave is seriously pedestrian when compared to the rest of that backline.

For us it was nice to Griffin back to his best.

Fair point about the ref he missed a lot against us as well. The BBC NI team must have spent a good 10mins analysing Muldoon's pulling back Pienaar. From a reverse angle you could see Fitzgibbon tripped and fell over at the exact same moment as the pull back otherwise Muldoon would have been in the bin.

rossie wrote: I thought ref had a decent game overall. 1 incident sticks out for me in that i need clarification on rule. In 1st half jared payne made a clean catch outside his 22 on main stand side. He was immediately tackled and held up by swifty and 1 other connact player and supported by ulster winger. More players joined and maul slowly moved forward about 5mtre before stopping and whistle going. Ref awarded put in to ulster and clearly stated that it was a clean catch and maul formed immediately upon making clean catch. I thought it should have been connachts ball. Is fact that maul was formed by defence team relevent?

The put in to the scrum was Ulster's because the maul formed directly from a kick. If Payne had passed the ball and then the subsequent maul was formed it would have been our put in.

Overall i thought the ref was ok but i didn't understand why Ulster were allowed to tackle Marmion at the back of the ruck twice which led directly to Ulster scoring 10 points. Then in the second half he pinged them early on for exactly the same offence as if someone had a word with him at half time.

Not saying it impacted on the result but when you are facing one of the best teams in Europe it would be nice not to gift them 10 points from such an obvious infraction.

Never be happy losing a game but have to say I was very proud of the performance from the lads last night. Ultimately we were within touching distance of them with 20mins to go and then they bring Hendo, Muller and Afoa on.

Hopefully Griffin has booked his trip to America on the back of that performance last night, hard to remember the lad is just 22.

I thought if anything Fitzpatrick gave us the rub of his decisions last night. In the first half he missed a high tackle and from the subsequent ruck gave us a turnover penalty, in the second half he missed a stonewall yellow for Muldoon for interfering with a player off the ball (we might make an openside of him yet) and I thought he showed extraordinary forebearance to Rodney in not awarding a penalty try against us.

If he'd given those sort of decisions against Connacht we'd be furious.

Other thoughts from the game:

Our defending was the worst since Scarlets were here last autumn. Rossie's post hit the nail on the head there.

I was surprised at how good Diack was (I know a few people here are big fans of his) but I thought Henry wasn't great and Cave is seriously pedestrian when compared to the rest of that backline.

For us it was nice to Griffin back to his best.

Dan Parks didn't look too happy to be hauled off in the 43rd minute. I don't think he was injured so I think they wanted to have a look at Nikora. I like Nikora as a player for the most part but this aimless kicking down the centre makes no sense to me, this was capped by the kick which brought about the try, it was obvious that Nikora got caught between two minds and was probably due to nervousness from being given a chance to show what he can do and a lack of game time. He looked genuinely distraught at the end of the game.

Would agree about the ref. One thing I didn't like in the second half however was when Pienaar essentially told him what to do and he buckled, other than that I think he got most of the calls right.