FOR SOME REASON, Dan McFarland must hate the first sighting of fairy lights, the whiff of mulled wine and the strains of Wizard or Slade.
They usher in the annual winter of discontent for Ulster rugby. Last year it got very tricky for McFarland after a 39-0 walloping against Sale Sharks on 11 December, followed six days later with the European Professional Club Rugby officials moving their game against La Rochelle from Ravenhill to the Aviva Stadium.
The game was played behind closed doors and Ulster were down 29-0 at the break to Ronan O’Gara’s side. They recovered to be on the wrong side of a 36-29 defeat.
At the time, McFarland was drawing attention to the pitch inspection that was conducted on the Friday evening by referee Luke Pearse and his feeling that it was the wrong decision. As well as the financial loss of £700,000 to Ulster.
Behind all that, there were whispers and rumours that McFarland’s job was under threat.
Those within Ulster Rugby though, will point to the fact that in June last year he signed a contract extension that will take him to 2025. Given he is already in the job five years, that is an impressively-long spell in charge of any rugby side.
So when it comes to dealing with Ulster’s iffy form of late, McFarland has the security of knowing that the important people have his back, and recalling how they played their way out of trouble last year.
“There were a couple of things last year that really set us back that were contextual, and I think really hit us hard,” he says now with Racing 92 coming to Ravenhill for a Saturday night date in the European Rugby Champions Cup.
“Around the second half of that Leinster game with the number of injuries we had in that game, the travel to Sale and then the visit to Dublin for a home game with La Rochelle was tough to deal with at that time.
“We were actually leading into that playing some good rugby, different rugby to what we’re playing now but it was very good, physical, on top of teams, using weapons.
“The situation this year is slightly different.
“(We’re) playing a different style of rugby and the way that we’re playing is both allowing us to learn stuff but is also meaning that it’s a little bit costly at the moment.
“It’s a delicate balance, isn’t it?
“We’re trying to develop the squad and win games at the same time. That’s for me to balance and make decisions on.”
So what is he trying to do? Something a bit more positive. Perhaps it is because he has the backing of those upstairs, but he has thrust Scott Wilson in such the Munster win. James McNabbey, the number 8 who played on the U20s team that made the World Cup final last summer, has played in the last three games.
He’s handed debuts to Reuben Crothers, Joe Hopes, Lorcan McLaughlin and Ben Carson. All the while, coaxing the likes of Jacob Stockdale back into form and carefully managing Iain Henderson, Stuart McCloskey and Rob Herring as they come off the back of World Cup heartache.
Those that like their rugby traditional, and there’s no end of those around Ravenhill, would have been delighted when McFarland swooped for South African Bomb Squad member, loosehead prop Steven Kitshoff.
When asked ‘why Ulster?’ Kitshoff explained that McFarland, who doubles up as the team’s scrum coach, made an impressive presentation and a huge effort.
He hasn’t been long in identifying what has been seen as a weak area in the Ulster game. For McFarland’s part, he’s been impressed by who Kitshoff has hit the ground running.
“He seems a really good man and obviously brings a huge amount of credibility through the door with him in being a double World Cup winner, a captain of a URC champion team and we knew all that before,” McFarland said.
“It is what it is, he’s bedding down but he’s very able and willing to offer knowledge straight away, he’s brought some good stuff with him around scrum time that I think we can work which will be really helpful to us, I think.
“At the weekend in tough circumstances I thought he did well, he is very active, he brings a jackal threat, carries the ball really well and he has good impact on the field.”
The form has been messy of late. Back-to-back losses to the Celtic cousins in Glasgow and Edinburgh was followed last week by a late collapse away to Bath.
It was closer than the 37-14 final scoreline suggests. They were 18-14 down when the clock ticked into the 69th minute.
What’s letting them down is accuracy, according to McFarland.
He admits to being, “Surprised” at last weekend, when Harlequins ran in four tries away to Racing. McFarland reminds us that in the French leagues, Racing have conceded something like 1.6 tries per game this season, and are the highest scoring side also.
He’d be inclined to see Harlequins, “Catching them on the hop”, rueing the chance of doing the same now. What he can say with certainty is he sees Stuart Lancaster’s influence on the French side.
“Definitely. In the way that they attack but also some of the kicking game. But defensively, definitely.
“They fill the field really well in defence, they get a lot of people on their feet when they need to and they counterattack with good decisions when they need to.
“Probably mostly in the defensive side of things actually, I’ve noticed it’s very, very like what Leinster were doing over the last number of seasons which is pretty impressive given the fact he’s only five months in the job.
“But they are good players too so they cop on pretty quickly.”
With Kitshoff now in situ, the hope is that a regular team can bed down. For three weeks running, Ulster had somewhere in the region of 14 or 15 injuries per game. McFarland also chose to rest some players.
“I wanted to see guys playing and I think it was in round six I read somewhere that we had played the most players in the league at that stage,” he states.
“That was a combination of the injuries but also the conscious choice to give guys an opportunity. You sacrifice a bit of cohesion for that as well.
“But championships aren’t won in October and November.”
Indeed.