ULSTER COACH MARK Anscombe has one regret from his first season in charge.
The New Zealander arrived at the northern province with grave questions surrounding his appointment.
Brian McLaughlin had achieved folk hero status. Ulster to the core, he brought the red hand to their first Heineken Cup final since the glory day in 1999.
Perhaps it was understandable then, that the incoming Anscombe began to bristle a bit in his early days.
After just a few games in charge, he responded to a question about living up to the standards of the previous season with: “The brutal truth of it is we haven’t won anything yet. So the fact is: ‘How do you measure success”
Trophies and medals were the easy answer. However, after reaching another final last season, Anscombe has shown some signs of reining in that brashness of 12 months ago.
“The thing is,” the Kiwi says at this week’s RaboDirect Pro12 launch, “maybe we did get too caught up with silverware last year. The fact is a lot can happen. And when you reflect on last year, we achieved a lot last year and had a good season.”
Instead of the brutal truth – which does, of course, remain, Anscombe will speak in terms of seven-day cycles. Goals will be kept in-house, the next step will be more important than the platform above.
“Just to be asked a question, ‘is a season unsuccessful because we have no silverware?’ No it wasn’t.
“Look at the players that have come through, we’ve qualified first in our Heineken Cup pool – the first time we did that. We qualified first in the Rabo; the last time Ulster won it that was the format they won it under.
Generous
“So, we achieved a lot, but Ulster are ambitious and we want more. We’ll challenge ourselves to do that, but we’ll keep our focus around the here and now rather than the end of the season.”
So, what about that regret?
“Look, it would have been nice to have the home final at Ravenhill. We had that right.
“That’s always hard when you take a final you’ve earned away to your biggest rival and give it to them in their back yard – it’s a pretty generous offer by us.”
