ULSTER CEO SHANE Logan has been under fire through most of the calamitous season at the Kingspan Stadium, and so he took to the province’s YouTube platform to issue a 13 and a half minute response to some of the flak he has received.
The province’s video was timed to release at 5pm yesterday, 49 minutes after Ireland had recorded their bonus point win over Scotland and just as it was becoming clear that England would no longer be able to challenge them for the Six Nations Championship.
To the province’s credit, the questions set in front of Logan were pertinent, ranging from asking whether he intended to resign, to why there had been such a high turnover of coaches and a call to assess the Ulster academy.
The answers were not all satisfying, however, reaching a nadir when Logan brushed off the suggestion that there had been a high turnover of coaches by only counting the two directors of rugby who had worked under him over the course of the last eight years.
“In that time we’ve achieved a brave bit,” Logan said on the subject of his resignation.
“We’ve a stadium which is the envy of rugby in Europe. We’ve cleared many millions of debt and we’re one of the few clubs in Europe which is now debt-free. Our commercial revenues are up towards the top end which allows us be competitive in the long-term.
“What people don’t realise is that Ulster Rugby isn’t just a professional team… arguably the best thing we’ve done in my time is to have 20,000 of the most deprived young people in Ulster on significant rugby programmes.
So most of the foundations are in place. If I didn’t think we could build on the foundations and get through this storm then I would resign. There’s plenty to be done yet.”
Much of that action plan centres around recruitment, with Logan maintaining that the structures under the pyramid’s peak have been solidified.
“There’s no doubt we’re in a storm, you might even call it the perfect storm. The storm is in relation to the performance of the professional team,” he says.
“Up to half a dozen of our best players have been unavailable for a range of reasons. I don’t think any team, where margins are so fine, could cope with that.
“Putting it right, three things we’re looking at doing:
“First, strengthening the ranks, bringing in fresh talent. We have Marty Moore and Jordi Murphy coming in, we should have a fit-again Marcell Coetzee and we’re looking at one, two or maybe more signings to strengthen the squad.
“The second thing is, younger players (fast-tracked due to injury and unavailability) will be a year wiser.
“The final part of the jigsaw… we have to move to a place where we can have world class players in our overseas group.
“We need to work with the IRFU, increasingly well, to ensure those five (NIQ) players are there to make the disproportionate difference as they did when we qualified for the (knockout stage of) four European Cups.”
Logan paid tribute to the departing Jono Gibbes for remaining on as head coach until the end of this season despite the family issues which have convinced him to return to Waikato.
The search is on for the Kiwi’s replacement, with Logan saying that Bryn Cunningham and David Nucifora have a long list with ‘six to eight’ attractive candidates to pursue.
The dispiriting Champions Cup exit away to Wasps in January was the final nail in Les Kiss’ tenure. But results worsened after the Australian’s departure and Ulster now sit fourth in Pro14 Conference B – five points behind Edinburgh and seven ahead of Benetton – in real danger of missing out on a Champions Cup place for next season with Conference A leaders Glasgow and Munster still to face.
The most positive boost the province could provide in the closing weeks of the season would be contract renewals for their Lions Iain Henderson and Rory Best. If and when that news comes, you can be certain it won’t be timed to be immediately buried by good news from the national team.
