CHARITY BEGINS AT home, so they say. In this case, charity begins when you decide not to play at home.
While you can see the financial logic in Connacht’s decision to switch this game (kick off 5.15pm, TG4, Premier) from the Sportsground to the Aviva, especially when you consider the closed-door signs that have been posted in Galway for much of the last 18 months, from a sporting perspective, you fear for Andy Friend’s side.
Possessing a thinner squad than almost everyone else, they’ve picked up their usual share of injuries – Bundee Aki’s absence today being the blow they just didn’t need.
The irony is that Friend’s team have produced the two best performances by any Irish team so far this season, in Thomond Park a week ago, and against the Bulls a fortnight prior to then.
Yet they’re one from four while the other three Irish provinces were four from four after the end of last week’s programme.
Had they stuck to Galway with this fixture, you’d have fancied their chances of improving those statistics. The fact they’re here, the fact they’re here without Aki, persuades you to look at Ulster’s credentials, the fine form of Nick Timoney, James Hume and Nathan Doak, plus the return of Iain Henderson, Stuart McCloskey and Robert Baloucoune, and side with them.
The interesting thing is that both teams are a work in progress. Ulster have been winning well but playing in patches. Their set-piece was very good last week but average enough the week before. After round one, their defence has been excellent, one of the best in the league.
But they’ve been coughing up possession at a wild rate, an issue Dan McFarland alluded to last week as he more or less accepted that the displays his side have produced thus far won’t be enough for the games that matter most: a URC quarter-final or semi; a Champions Cup game either home or away.
Make no mistake that this will be their toughest test of the season so far because even if Connacht are far down the table, the truth is they’re still likely to be standing when the quarter-final draw is made.
Ulster are their rivals purely in geographic terms. With regard to the table, to making it into Europe, to getting to the end of season knock-out stages, it’s Edinburgh or Benetton they need to think about, if not them then Cardiff, Ospreys or Scarlets, the Stormers, Sharks or Bulls.
Seventh position will get them into next season’s Champions Cup. Of course it’s unfair that they have to play the competition’s three best sides twice, whereas Glasgow get double-dates with Zebre, Benetton and Edinburgh and just the one outing against Ulster, Leinster and Munster.
But that’s what they signed up for.
They’re still good enough to squeeze their way into the top eight, still good enough to get a win here today, although the feeling is they won’t, that Ulster’s ability to refresh their squad and replace tired bodies with a British and Irish Lion in Henderson, and a pair of Irish internationals in McCloskey and Baloucoune, just gives them an edge.
We know Connacht will rattle them. We know they’ve the ability to score from deep; that their line-out last week looked as good as it has done in a while; that they won’t fear Ulster in the scrum and that they too will relish the prospect of playing in the Aviva.
But it’s a game of fine margins. Had they been given an extra week’s rest, had they patched up Aki and got him out fit, you could have made a stronger case for them to win. The suspicion is Ulster will have too much and that Connacht will be left nursing another bonus-point loss for a second week in a row.
Connacht Rugby: Tiernan O’Halloran, John Porch, Sammy Arnold, Tom Daly, Mack Hansen, Jack Carty (CAPT), Kieran Marmion; Matthew Burke, Dave Heffernan, Finlay Bealham, Niall Murray, Ultan Dillane, Eoghan Masterson, Conor Oliver, Paul Boyle
Replacements: Shane Delahunt, Jordan Duggan, Jack Aungier, Oisín Dowling, Jarrad Butler, Caolin Blade, Conor Fitzgerald, Diarmuid Kilgallen.
Ulster Rugby: Ethan McIlroy, Robert Baloucoune, James Hume, Stuart McCloskey, Craig Gilroy, Billy Burns, Nathan Doak, Eric O’Sullivan, Rob Herring, Tom O’Toole, Alan O’Connor, Iain Henderson (Capt.), Matty Rea, Nick Timoney, David McCann.
Replacements: Brad Roberts, Andrew Warwick, Ross Kane, Kieran Treadwell, Greg Jones, David Shanahan, Mike Lowry, Ben Moxham.
Referee: Andrew Brace (IRFU)
