ULSTER ASSISTANT COACH Roddy Grant admits the onus is on players and coaches to cut down on the spike in red cards in the game in recent weeks, rather than making the rules more lenient.
A late red card to tighthead prop Tom O’Toole for a shoulder to the head of Toulouse flanker Anthony Jelonch contributed to 14-man Ulster slipping to a 30-23 defeat to the defending champions at Kingspan Stadium last Saturday, which knocked them out of the Heineken Champions Cup.
However, that was just one of several incidents that led to dismissals over the two weekends of European action, with Toulouse winger Juan Cruz Mallia sent-off for taking out Ulster winger Ben Moxham in the air in the first leg, while last weekend alone there were five red cards dished out across the eight second-leg fixtures.
That followed on from a Six Nations that was plagued by cards, from which an argument grew that they were ruining the game as a spectacle and that a lengthier temporary sin-bin for red-carded players – a 20-minute ‘orange’ card – would suffice instead.
However, Grant believes the responsibility should fall on players and coaches to change their habits rather than looking at adjusting the rule book, with the former flanker believing that the best they can do is try and avoid compromising situations as much as possible.
“Technically you just have to be on the money – if you’re too high, you’re too high,” he stated.
“You need to keep working the guys because there’s a lot that goes into it. When you’re tired, your technique goes off a little bit. Unlucky events that you can’t mitigate for, but you try and mitigate as much as you can through technique, through strategy.
“Statistically they’re bound to happen. A lot of them aren’t without malice these days, they just happen and you have to mitigate against it as much as you can through technique and fitness.”
While O’Toole’s red card did precede Antoine Dupont’s winning try in Belfast, it was not the sole reason they were left licking their wounds on home turf by the defending champions.
But rather than dwell on what could have been, there has been a sharp mindset shift within Ulster Rugby HQ to Friday’s looming inter-provincial derby against Munster that will go a long way to determining their fate in the United Rugby Championship, now their sole focus for silverware.
With only seven points separating Ulster in second and the Vodacom Bulls in eighth, there’s no room for error in the race for home advantage in the play-offs and, accordingly, there’s no room for being stuck in the past.
“There’s different sets of challenges,” says Grant of their mental approach this week. “Reviewing honestly where improvements can be made, how to pick guys up, what tone to use in meetings, getting a feel from players how they’re feeling.
“Any time you have a loss in pro sport it’s a test of your squad and character to get back up and going again. It is what it is, we have a big game this weekend and a big last three or four games before the play-offs. That’s how I see it and we have to get up for that.
“It’s a test of character and all the above. It’s pro sport. You have to deliver and you want to deliver.
“There’s no alternative, you’re not going to beat Munster if you’re not at your best. We need to beat them for points, so it’s a really important game, and the only way we’re going to beat them is if we’re at our best. We need to shake off the weekend pretty quick and come out all guns blazing.
“Everyone knows where we are, what the points are, what a home play-off game means. Everyone’s aware of how important this game is. From a performance point of view and delivering, everyone is aware of it.
“It’s a good one to get after a disappointment: a big game to sharpen the mind.”
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