THE NEED FOR ULSTER’s middle tier players to kick on and produce match-winning performances was up for discussion on today’s Rugby Weekly Extra, the podcast for subscribers to The 42.
Murray Kinsella, rugby journalist with The 42, praised the leadership of Tom Stewart, one young players who has impressed with the province, but said that some of those with more experience need to provide the impetus for Ulster to improve – in the vein that has happened in Munster.
“One of the bits with Munster is that the middle tier with their squad took great leaps and massively improved their standards,” said Kinsella.
“So think about someone like Calvin Nash who was in his mid 20s, was in the squad for a while, wasn’t a first choice player, we knew he had loads of talent, and he went to a new level last season.
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“Even Jean Kleyn is another one. A lot of people would have thought, ‘Oh he’s just a bit of a plodder in the second row, he’s a consistent, middling type of player there, not quite of international calibre’ and in the last year of so he went to a completely different level.
“Now he’s a World Cup winner and lauded rightly around the world. That tier of the Munster squad really accelerated and were empowered to do so by the coaching staff.”
“Is it happening in Ulster? I don’t really think so if I’m being honest. That tier of their squad who aren’t fully international players, not young guns anymore, they’re probably not hitting the standards that they maybe could, or it doesn’t feel like they’re fully maximising their potential – or maybe they just are at their level.
“That’s where you need to get your improvement out of your squad. You know that your international on big days are going to generally produce big performances, that’s why they’re international players.
“You know the talent that your young lads have, you know the drawbacks of putting too any of them into the fray and you’ve got to balance that out.
“But you really need your middle tier player who is not on the biggest contract, not on the smallest contract and not the big household name and the one people are talking about – you need them to be delivering consistently, and that’s a big one for Ulster I think.”
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