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

Huge win, we weren't outstanding for periods but it was a strong enough Cardiff side.

Lots of positives to take from that:

Henderson getting a full game under him and Cooney returning. Baloucoune and Timoney were exceptional, and lots of players who don't start for us made positive impacts as well - Tom Stewart looked good, Stewart Moore looked assured in a new position for him, Reid did well in the scrum until more changes were made, Aaron Sexton got a run and Jim Neily got to mention his 100m time again. Moxham might gain a little confidence from that, didn't make any mistakes, made a couple of good reads/hits and got a little run in open field.

Any defence facing Baloucoune has to think twice about being beaten on the outside. He must create more space for the centres?

Hi folks

heading up to Ravenhill on Saturday, I know the England Ireland game is being shown in the ground, but can you recommend any pubs nearby to watch it? Staying in city centre so we don't want to leave it til after the game to make our way to the grounds. Google maps isn't showing anything. Thanks.

They'll be showing it in the middle floor of the Errigle on the Ormeau Road (twenty minutes' walk away, as Locke says), or at Malone Rugby Club which is five minutes from the stadium.

Aye The Errigle is definitely the place to go, but it will be absolutely rammed

I hate going into a game as favourites, but it's hard to pull the scrappy underdog card with that team.

What does that even mean?

Frank is so all over the place and it could benifit us. Or it could go the other way.

Going by UAFC, Lewis Finlay has left the academy for the championship in England. He looked very good at u20 level, but the coaches must not have rated him or he didn't think he'd get the opportunities behind Doak, who's younger than him as well.

So we have Conor McKee as the other scrum-half left in the academy who I thought had a fairly mistake-riddled u20 campaign.

Below that there's two 9's who were involved in the Ireland u18 squads, one of which played 15 in the schools cup semi-final the other day but I have no idea which position is his best. There's also the lad who started for our u19's who I was very impressed with but he wasn't called up for the Ireland squad at Christmas. I have a poor enough track record with judging 9's, so who knows lol

Also thought Finlay looked very good at U20s, who knows why some of these guys just never push on or get opportunities! Wasn’t overly impressed with McKee either.

Raging tonight’s u20 game is at the same time, was hoping to see McLoughlin. Thought he looked very interested last week off the bench!

The reason we generally play at such a quick pace isn't because we have an athletic pack, but because slowing the ball down will only put us in a worse position.

Anyway, that's the double over Leinster so I'm delighted. They can claim a moral victory - our '1st xv' against their 'reserves' - or pretend that Frank Murphy was out to get them but it's never stopped them beating us before. Did it on a horrible pitch in pouring rain as well, which are conditions that favour their pack. Awful watch, don't care lol