URC Round 16 - Ulster vs. Munster - Friday, 22nd April @ 7.35pm - BBC NI, Premier Sports 2, RTE 2

Former Former Former

Bit of a paddlin' so far. Casey and Carbery playing very well.

Ulster look to be forcing things too much. Need to relax and hold on to the ball.

degsie

Entertaining game, think Munster will see this through.

awec

It is very hard to see us turning this around. We are awful.

lawrencesummers

If ulster run that same move off first phase where balacoune comes around and into the middle with farrell waiting open arms then someone should get a P45.

jimdemp

Men against billy Boys

Mod: banned.

lawrencesummers

Cooneys misses touch from the restart proves costly

Clegg

That was incredible fielding from McCloskey.

stephen_n

At this stage I’d be very happy for Munster to pick Murray every time they play Leinster.

Clegg

Ulsters scrum has been impressive tonight.

Teferi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118962651#Comment_118962651

Is there a need for the secterianism?

stephen_n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118962701#Comment_118962701

Is there a need for the quote?

clsmooth

What’s the latest with Jack McGrath?

lawrencesummers

Huge take from ahern. Another maul try there would have given ulster huge momentum

Clegg

Ulsters attacking play is very poor. Going side to side with little penetration through the defence. Get panicky and start throwing speculative passes.

budhabob

DDA did release there.

Burkie1203

Earls should be gone too

Madeoface

Lowry not good at all tonight. Madser should have been on way earlier. Doak quite impressive.

Munster good in attack....enjoying the game

Madigan has made a big difference at 10 imo. It's not totally obvious where the ball is going to go now, he's picking his passes much better.

Clegg

The first half was the best I'd seen Munster perform in a while. Their defence was smothering and Ulster could get very little good ball.

Second half has been a mess with both sides making lots of errors.

TomsOnTheRoof

Discipline in the second half aside, Munster will be happy with that, especially given the names missing.

awec

Best team won that, would have been theft if we had got a win.

Ulster are still mentally too fragile to be considered a serious outfit.

Akrasia

Absolutely delighted with that win. At half time I knew Ulster would come back fighting and I'm so proud of the lads for hanging on and securing that win.

sioda

Who got man star player CJ of the match?

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118962872#Comment_118962872

Alex Kendellan

budhabob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118962874#Comment_118962874

He was immense to be fair, similar to CJ in many aspects of his game.

Akrasia

For a 21 year old academy player..., the hype is real

Akrasia

He has a serious Jamey Heaslip vibe about him

Hey boy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118962890#Comment_118962890

Personally I would have given MOTM to Casey

TRC10

Kendellan and Casey the standouts. Both absolutely superb. Both have big futures. Ahern was impressive off the bench too.

But Ulster need to look at themselves and ask some serious questions. They have a really good squad but can fluctuate from brilliant to absolutely terrible. There's 100% a soft underbelly there. But somehow I can't see them being scrutinised to anywhere near the extent Munster were, when they absolutely deserve it. Lowry at 10 didn't work.

Munster were excellent. They played some glorious rugby in the 1st half. Earls' try was a thing of beauty and was a glimpse of what they can do. And they managed the game really well in the 2nd. They looked comfortable for 80 minutes and there only ever looked like one team winning that game.

molloyjh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118963065#Comment_118963065

When it was a 4 point game and Munster were down a player it definitely didn’t look like a foregone conclusion. And Ulster don’t get the same anything as Munster, praise or criticism. I haven’t seen you complaining about the former.

Munster comfortably looked the better side there, and Ulster looked like the Ulster of last season.

Ulster's big players who they rely upon for leadership, especially Henderson and Cooney were both poor. The Ulster pack has very little in the way of ball carriers, and badly missed Duane Vermeulen tonight. Munster were judicious in choosing when to try and poach, generally leaving the ball to Ulster and fanning out in defence, and yet despite that, Ulster's ruck speed was generally slow.

Half backs utterly struggled to control things and rarely threatened despite having a reasonable amount of possession. Doak significantly improved things on Cooney, who also kicked the ball badly repeatedly.

Craig Casey & Alex Kendellen were immense, with good performances also from Jean Kleyn, John Hodnett and a very composed Joey Carbery.

Hey boy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118963256#Comment_118963256

I’m not sure about that. Doak had a couple of poor kicks and passes too. It was more to do with Madonna at 10 I’m surprised to say.

However I think the tactics weren’t great. Big Dan getting a bye ball in all these comments.

very poor line speed in D

10 was static receiving the ball and a long way from gain line

fwd off 9 first thing every phase was brilliant for Munster. they love that.

then box kick and hope for a lucky break.

thought mccloskey did rightly

theVersatile

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118963197#Comment_118963197

"Munster"

"Praise"

Choose one

Clegg

Munster did a job on Ulsters pack tonight. Their defence was smothering. The latter found it so hard to get over the gain line. And when they did their handling and decision making let them down.

Baloucoune looked threatening whenever he got the ball. So it's a triumph of Munsters effort and gameplan that he barely got a touch of it all night.

Poorside

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118963495#Comment_118963495

Shot up on him from start and that seemed affect Ulsters gameplan an awful lot, they didn't really adjust and Lowry just kept shovelling ball hoping someone outside would pick a good option.

awec

Given the mental fragility of this Ulster side, and the fact we were close to full strength tonight, it is hard not to think that tonight's result and overall performance is going to have a lasting impact on this team.

Ulster were humped. Any notions they had about being ahead of Munster can be put back in their box. If any of these lads felt hard done by regarding Ireland caps they will just have to suck it up.

molloyjh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118963462#Comment_118963462

An stop. Munster get hyperbolic praise and hyperbolic criticism. The language used to describe Munsters win over Exeter was crazy. Inspirational and the like. It was in its hoop inspirational. It was a good win against fairly mediocre opposition.

There’s a bizarre obsession with Munster in the media where the romanticism of the great Munster side of the 00s lives on, creating this scenario where they are hyped up beyond what they deserve only to be torn down when they don’t live up to that hype. Yet any victory against good opposition is just another opportunity to hype them up again.

Just look at the lead in to the first round against Exeter. All “backs to the wall” talk about how you’d back Munster to deliver a “passionate” display and beat the odds to another memorable victory. Quite how some people don’t see it is beyond me. So many pundits gush over Munster regardless of whether it’s warranted or not.

Few Munster fans complain about that. But once those pundits turn on Munster for not living up to whatever weird romantic fantasy these pundits have in their heads, then it’s all “D4 media have it in for Munster”. Despite the fact that many of the pundits are actually Munster men themselves.

None of this is Munsters fault of course. It’s just a strange reality of Irish rugby media. But let’s not kid ourselves here, Munster get plenty of praise. And when you look at the language used it is very emotive and romantic. Ulster rarely get that. But that also means they rarely get the same level of criticism either. Both because the media here just don’t give them as much attention generally. Which is understandable to a point given the markets they are, and are not, selling to.

leakyboots

Bizarre post above.

Anyway, enjoyed that a lot! Was not expecting a victory but a lot of positives to take from it.

Casey really came of age I think, I'm a massive Murray fan and some of the criticism of slow play has been exaggerated in my opinion but Casey is seriously asking for the starting jersey now.

Kendellan has that touch of class and leadership that POM had coming through, I think he'll be an international before long - only 21 still!

Gonna give a shout out to Jean Kleyn also - hands like tits for a long time but now he's making pop passes off the deck, he's having a brilliant season and has clearly worked on his skills this year. Our scrum is not the same without him, I'd love to see him get another look internationally if there's room.

TomsOnTheRoof

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118963816#Comment_118963816

I agree on Casey. I think he should have the starting jersey. Murray is one of our best ever but our attack is a different animal with Casey at 9.

His kicking performance tonight was so good and yet it was his passing game and the direction he gave our attack which was the most impressive thing.

phog

I didn't see the match but that's a damn fine result from Ravenhill.

I'd have been happy with a LBP so this is really a welcome & rare win.

ujjjjjjjjj

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118963759#Comment_118963759

Munster zeitgeist, miracle match, backs against the wall, fortress thomond....problem is anything positive suddenly becomes hyperbolic 'we are back' and HEC wins are being penciled in almost as if it is a birthright.

Positives for Munster were Casey and Kendallan, two real gems coming through so heading the right way. Genuinely would be surprised if Munster win anything this year but plenty to be positive about for next year with the coaching change. VDG has been poor.

Ulster look mentally very fragile, play some good rugby and then buckle when they might actually win anything but honestly when you look at their pack bar Henderson and the SA lump it isn't good enough.

phog

Do you have to be in control of the ball to earn a 50/22.

Last night Earls hacked on a ball from his own half and it went into touch inside the Ulster 22 but Ulster got the lineout.

Need to watch it back to see did Munster object and what ref said about it.

Thinking about it now maybe Munster took the ball back into their half before the ball arrived to Earls.

stephen_n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118964119#Comment_118964119

Thought at the time Pepyer said it was inside the Ulster half when he kicked it. RTE of course didn’t re-show the kick.

phog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118964157#Comment_118964157

If that's the reason, ref got it wrong. Earls was between his 10 & the halfway line when he kicked the ball, well inside his own half.

Poorside

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118963759#Comment_118963759

Not one person I know acts or talks like that about Munster, everyone knows we're at about the same level as Ulster, as in just below the very top tier. So hyperbole sums up your post nicely.

molloyjh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118964216#Comment_118964216

I’m not saying people in general talk about Munster like that. You did actually read the post fully, right? I said the media.

Akrasia

People who follow rugby know this was an absolutely crucial match for Munster. Faced with the very real prospect of not qualifying for Europe next year (the challenge Cup doesn't count) we had to beat either Ulster or Leinster in our last 3 games.

Beating Ulster away requires a huge performance and that's what we delivered despite being missing 6 international standard players (POM, Snyman, Conway, Beirne, Kilkoyne and Zebo)

stephen_n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118964206#Comment_118964206

I thought so at the time and someone from Munster asked. Pepyer replied saying something like it was in this half. There was no replay of the kick though which was ridiculous.

Poorside

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118964327#Comment_118964327

Yup, and that hasn't been true since Conor George got his marching orders from the Indo. Unless of course you mean social media.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118964418#Comment_118964418

Was Munster's win over Wasps better than the Miracle Match?

Munster once again show why miracles are in their DNA

There's plenty more.

Conversely, the OMG ALL IS LOST reaction to the Leinster game was about equally hysterical.