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

Having Kitshoff here on a 3 year deal might have made the retention of JTA a bigger ask.

JTA allowed to walk and French signed. What the bleedin hell is the story there. If the union blocked this, it's shyte.

Yeah, very possible. Kitchoff will be on a fair slice too. But there's a few salaries leaving with only Ewers and Kitchoff coming in. The academy lads that have been promoted won't be breaking the bank. It could have been a done deal on JTA. It's a pity.

Ah JTA wouldn't have been on anything close to 350k. But he's a Samoan international now so would potentially be gone at the same time as TOT, and he'll be 33 in November.

Staying on was a long shot.

Loss of revenue from the Champions Cup game that was moved wouldn't have helped either.

Given our finances I'm surprised we actually tried to get JTA back given we'll be spending big on Kitshoff as well. But if he was available for a reasonable price then I'd be furious with the IRFU (uncommon for us, I know). Moore is coming off an very serious injury, his injury history isn't great to start with and despite Tom O'Toole's improvement this year, he'll spend time with Ireland.

JTA's replacements will probably be getting decent game time so this will have an impact on us. Ben Griffin seems highly enough rated in AIL circles and on the other Leinster forum so I'll wait an see on him, we picked up Eric O'Sullivan from 1A as well after all. Apparently he can scrummage all right. French I'm less than enthused about. I remember reading on Munsterfans every now again that they hoped he'd push on the fans seemed to have some expectations of him, but one appearance across two head coaches (I think) speaks for itself. Now playing in Australia (not super rugby).

As luck will have it, Ulster just happen to be a famous developer of prodigious forwards. A true breeding ground for raw talents to nurture their ability and emerge as barnstorming polished all-rounders.

Any news on a Henderson contract? All seems very late and a bit quiet for a club captain. WC training squad announced on Tuesday.

That's great and all, but will he be available to Ulster next season? He doesn't play that much for Ulster in truth, but I still think losing him would be a massive blow almost more for the signals it would send out about Ulster.

Seems logical.

Either that or really bad to non existant planning.

Whatever way you look at it we have lost at least 10 players and from what I can tell have signed 3.

Promoting from the academy is great as long as it's done on merit, rather than a cost cutting exercise.

move to sustainable homegrown talent?

50% increase in academy uptake. All academy players to the very least development contracts.

Mention of a new rotation/selection Policy.

Now hopefully this materialises and young players progress!

In other news, if London Irish fold. Simmons would be worth picking up.

Seems your understanding was wrong. I wonder would Henderson consider Japan after the RWC.

Squad rotation would be good - mainly just McCann, Sheridan, Izzy and maybe flannery to see if they’re up to it. If Reid’s scrum has improved then maybe him as well. Felt like mcilroys minutes dropped as well but he was maybe injured.

so it seems like 8/9 academy players for next season which is up around 50%. There’s definitely a few more promising ones than usual, but I wonder if they planning on keeping up that intake? We didn’t have a single u18 in the Ireland squad and only 3 or 4 in the ‘B’ team, so quantity over quality won’t improve us long term and probably only serves as a money saving mechanism.

for similar reasons, I’m not a fan of development contracts for everyone. Sometimes you have to be ruthless. I get that there’s merit in giving everyone a shot but with some players you just know.

exact opposite of Munster then. They had a new game plan in mind with a new coach, and were woeful in the opening rounds and looked like they would be fighting for a champions cup place. They trusted that they the results would come because their players were good enough.

so I guess the question is, do we have they players to play another way? Can our coach implement a new game plan?

almost a redundant question for me because they way we play was never sustainable, so something has to change. Our forwards aren’t good/strong enough to bully other packs and our mauls never really troubled good teams.