Ulster Team Talk Thread IV... Go On My Henderson...

Match week at last

I would guess we will see something similar to the team that started the second friendly against Saracens

The question is whether Stockdale, McCloskey and Herring will be available and whether Addison is fit?

We need to win our home games so as ridiculous as it sounds in our fordt match of the season this is game that we can ill afford to lose.

I'd say Baloucoune will be as he played the second match against Saracens. Can't remember if O'Sullivan played or not...I think Reid started the first match and Warwick the second, but don't quote me on that!

Hendo spitting' straight facts. Might tactually watch this tonight now.

Ulster team to play Glasgow Warriors, United Rugby Championship Round 1, Friday 24 September at Kingspan Stadium (kick-off 7.35pm):

(15-9) Ethan McIlroy, Robert Baloucoune, James Hume, Stuart McCloskey, Jacob Stockdale, Billy Burns, John Cooney;

(1-8) Andrew Warwick, Brad Roberts, Marty Moore, Alan O’Connor, Sam Carter (Capt.), Greg Jones, Sean Reidy, Nick Timoney.

Replacements: Rob Herring, Eric O’Sullivan, Tom O’Toole, Mick Kearney, Matty Rea, Nathan Doak, Mike Lowry, Will Addison.

Unavailable for selection

Jack McGrath, Gareth Milasinovich, Iain Henderson, Kieran Treadwell, Cormac Izuchukwu, Jordi Murphy, Ian Madigan, Luke Marshall, Rob Lyttle, Aaron Sexton.

McIlroy and Brad start, good front row on bench, Doak and Addison on bench, Lowry as bench 10. Much to like.

Straight facts? Surely you mean straight opinions.

Form didn’t play a part in Lawes selection ahead of Henderson. Which is fair enough to say. However that ignores the selection of Beard for the third test ahead Henderson, which certainly wasn’t on banked form.

in the end of the day, coaches pick the players they believe will best suit their game plan. Henderson clearly wasn’t that for Gatland in the tests.

Indeed. And Gatland's game plan resulted in a 2-1 loss with a lot of dire, tedious rugby that was utterly deflating. Well done him. Nothing to be learned or taken away from that.

Watched the Ulster Rugby Show that the Henderson quotes came from. Decent watch.

He, Best and Bowe all agree that Gatland has "his guys" - Bowe says "I was one of them!" because Gats knew him from the Ospreys. Best defends Gats picking the Welsh guys he knows because he knew what they could deliver for him. Henderson actually suggests that it's important to Gatland to pick players who are robust, and that, in fairness, the test team accordingly had a very low rate of injury, and that might not be true of himself. But I suppose you don't mention that if you want an article that reads like Iain is bitching.

The one who really can't believe Garland's game plan is Bowe, who's incredulous, and Henderson just kind of agrees it didn't work and reflects on that.

Interestingly, Best says that Ulster need to stop worrying about silverware and focus on peaking at the right time, and success will follow.

Why bother indeed.

The print media and Joe had an extremely fractious relationship because of reasons pertaining to this.

The journalists frequently complained to the IRFU media guys that Joe was giving run of the mill stock answers.

Joe was responding that 1) the questions were inane and 2) any comment he made that wasn't run of the mill or stock was harvested to death and taken totally out of context

I've been to a few press conferences and it's both extremely boring and an bizarre environment - the questions are bland and no one listens. Frequently, when a question is asked, not a single person is actually looking at the person answering, they just heads down typing and obviously waiting for a certain phrase or sentence to come out the wrong way that they can pounce on. It's a literal knife edge.

I have little tolerance for print media and I'd imagine the players would sooner get a few rakes on the back of the legs than sit through a press conference

Thing is he never mentioned Sexton though.

Is this match only on Premier sports or is it on any of the BBC channels?

Got a link to that episode, out of curiousity?