Canny McFarland has cleaned up inherited Ulster mess, but few will begrudge Leinster their PRO14 title hat-trick
Irish rugby’s pecking order was a very different place in 2006 when Ulster last lifted a trophy, glory clinched at Ospreys via a 79th minute David Humphreys drop goal from distance which clipped the upright on its way over from the 10-metre line.
Munster, the now annual underachievers, were European champions. Current serial winners Leinster were treading water, unsure whether their brash-mouthed rookie coach Michael Cheika was the real deal or just a puff of very hot air.
Even their now boss Leo Cullen didn’t want to know, the then second row having absconded the year before to win competitions at Leicester, something he didn’t think his native side were capable of at that time.
Then there was Ulster, the Celtic League victors who were never comfortable with the greater expectation their triumph generated. They sacked their league-winning coach just 18 months later and while the ousted Mark McCall went away and forged an enviable reputation at Saracens, the club he left behind burned through a phalanx of other anointed leaders.
What smothered them were giddy objectives, a CEO who talked boldly of the province becoming one of the best clubs in the world under his baton only for the grandiose project to lack substance and end in misery, the Paddy Jackson/Stuart Olding off-field calamity compounding the repeated on-field failures.
Some big calls ahead of there @PRO14Official final tomorrow evening. #GuinnessPro14 #Ulster #Leinster pic.twitter.com/tMhqOCDn2Q
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) September 11, 2020
Enter Dan McFarland to clean up the mess. An Englishman who happily made Connacht his home as a player – via a short stint in France – after big-spending Richmond went kaput all those years ago, he arrived in from coaching in Scotland with a transformative breath of fresh air.
Inexperienced players became coveted rather than frowned as a nuisance and the confidence this has imbued is taking them places. Michael Lowry, James Hume, Eric O’Sullivan and Tom O’Toole, who all start Saturday night’s Guinness PRO14 decider at the Aviva, are a quartet who encapsulate this progress, McFarland cherishing what he calls a growth mindset, where settling for second best or even worse isn’t an option.
It’s the sort of psychological mumbo jumbo that had no place in the rough and tumble sport 14 years ago when Ulster last ruled. Back then, it was all ‘don’t show weakness’, ‘man up’ and all the rest of the deflective patter in keeping with that macho era. Now it’s okay to be human, to be open about areas of improvement.
It was last November in Cardiff, at a PRO14 marking to promote the 2019/20 final that was scheduled to be played in the city’s football stadium in June, when RugbyPass had McFarland elaborate. He didn’t flinch, unlike contemporaries at some other clubs hewn from the ‘tell ’em nothing’ school of media training. “There is a lot of youth in our squad – we promote that idea of improvement and squeezing every drop out of their potential. When they are desperate to get better it creates a really healthy environment.”
Ten months later, with the pandemic having lain waste to plans that the Welsh capital would host a 33,000 capacity crowd, McFarland’s project has arrived at a two-fold moment of truth 25 months into his reign, this league final shootout with Leinster in Dublin followed eight days later by challenging Toulouse in France in the European last-eight.
They’re both free shots in the sense that Ulster already won ‘finals’ to get this far, beating fancied Edinburgh with a last-gasp penalty in the league semi last weekend while also emerging from a European pool that eliminated English duo Harlequins and Bath over last winter.
Now they get to test their mettle where it most matters and they have chosen cannily. As much as everyone loves John Cooney’s transformation, new Kiwi signing Alby Mathewson brought a game-changing tempo off the bench when backs were to the wall at Murrayfield. There is also something tantalising in McFarland having a bench stacked with five former Leinster medal winners, all Ireland Test caps.
Ulster’s situation room will like embracing this challenge of getting the timings of those introductions correct coming down the finishing straight, the closing minutes of a league campaign which for them started on September 27, 50 weeks ago when they beat Ospreys in Belfast on the same weekend Ireland crashed and burned to Japan at the World Cup.
https://www.facebook.com/rugbypass/posts/3249849348421699
Let’s hope Ulster are capable of asking the type of attacking questions which an anaemic Munster couldn’t and we get a showpiece to revel in. Remember, that shackle-free approach so nearly left them causing a March 2019 upset, a Jacob Stockdale spill over the line ultimately all that separated them from ambushing Leinster in a Champions Cup quarter-final.
Aviva Stadium was jammers that particular evening, an atmosphere that won’t exist for this behind closed doors final due to the ongoing pandemic restrictions in Ireland. But the one constant is that Leinster will have game. They love this league, even though the curious tactic of keeping Johnny Sexton in reserve for Saracens next weekend might suggest otherwise.
It mirrors 18 months ago when Ross Byrne started the Euro game versus Ulster that Sexton sat out completely and it’s a selection gambit Cullen would never have done when he initially picked up the pieces following the 2015 sacking of Matt O’Connor. Back then, he was a rookie unsure of himself, a newbie who didn’t have sufficient trust in the youthful conveyor belt at his disposal.
https://www.facebook.com/rugbypass/posts/2512545615485413
Stuart Lancaster’s September 2016 arrival helped release that handbrake and the rest, as they say, is history, Leinster winning all around them and their squad becoming fully inter-changeable with no dependence on Test players (53 players have been used in this latest campaign).
It’s no mean feat that the mix-it-up approach has Cullen running at a 77 per cent regular-season win rate, Leinster succeeding in 78 of their 101 league games across the five seasons he has been at the helm. And after some misfiring, they have become play-off clinical as well, final and semi-final defeats being followed by successive titles.
Unbeaten in their last 24 league and cup outings, they are now on the cusp of clinching an unprecedented league title hat-trick. Few will begrudge them if they get there, nailing a dominance that no-one would have predicted 14 years ago when Ulster were last top of the league tree. For sure, Irish rugby is now in a very different place.
?? Warning: This video contains content that may be sensitive for any team that @leinsterrugby have come across this season ??
Feast your eyes on their top tries ?
Expecting more of the same in the #GuinnessPRO14 Final tomorrow? pic.twitter.com/1cPGw8oK4i
— BKT United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial) September 11, 2020
Comments on RugbyPass
“We need eight or nine new players, who are hard-wearing and durable and experienced Premiership performers”. So why are they scouting a retired fullback who himself admits that his “body is broken”?
1 Go to commentsBrumbies hand, knocked a Crusaders hand. Therefore, knock on in goal. Crusaders, goal line drop out should’ve been awarded. most likely after that 24 each at full time, so extra time would’ve been the right an entertaining outcome. Act Jim
1 Go to commentsSpeell cehck
1 Go to commentsColeman is gaawwwwnnn.
1 Go to commentsnext SA head coach?
3 Go to commentsGreat try by van Poortvliet.
1 Go to commentsThey have been cruelled by injuries but almost nobody (Sevu Reece and Fletcher Newell big exceptions) has played above himself which regularly happened before. Surely Scott Robertson had maintained the recruitment programme and it looks like a reasonable squad. Last in this competition will stall a lot of careers. Penny seems likeable. But it’s not enough even though this was better. We haven’t been good enough and it’s not helped by the “it’s been 15 years since… “etc “after nearly every match. Seems somehow a soft gifting of something once valuable. Kieran Read giving comments last week almost choked describing the easy surrender of possession by the forwards. I’d love to think that the senior players some of whom are back can show enough pride in the jersey to test the Blues next week.
3 Go to commentsWho will Joe select for the back three with so many in form candidates? Just hope he doesn’t get shafted like Dave Rennie and to a lesser extent Deans.
6 Go to commentsAlways reluctant to blame a coach when losses rack up, but Penney must go. The backline is dysfunctional and the coach must carry the can. No cohesion, no idea and in many cases, minimal skill. The trains out of Roma St depart faster than the ball from Crusaders’ set pieces. Wouldn’t be surprised if the forwards went on strike.
3 Go to commentsAdding to earlier comment. Cullen Grace has been playing great at no6. Lio-Willie , who was on fire a few weeks ago, had a bad game. I think Cullen should have been moved to 8 earlier, Dominic Gardiner on earlier. Feel for Quinten Strange , put in a big shift .
6 Go to commentsWe dominated the scrums Ben Curry was all over pitch again .Surely James Harper got to be one of best English tightheads
1 Go to commentsRoos is a better option at 6 than 8 for the boks. Needs to work on his windgat though.
1 Go to commentsThe Sharks’ 2nd team maybe?
1 Go to comments‘radical’
1 Go to commentsCome back to Christchurch Robbie, please!
1 Go to commentsI think there is zero chance Sam Cane will be selected for another Test. There is simply no point except sentimentality. Razor is not sentimental- ask Wyatt Crocket. Razor is a ruthless selector
5 Go to comments> It would be best described as an elegant solution to what was potentially going to be a significant problem for new All Blacks coach Scott Robertson. It is a problem the mad population of New Zealand will have to cope with more and more as All Blacks are able to continue their careers in NZ post RWCs. It will not be a problem for coaches, who are always going to start a campaign with the captain for the next WC in mind. > Cane, despite his warrior spirit, his undoubted commitment to every team he played for and unforgettable heroics against Ireland in last year’s World Cup quarter-final, was never unanimously admired or respected within New Zealand while he was in the role. Neither was McCaw, he was considered far too passive a captain and then out of form until his last world cup where everyone opinions changed, just like they would have if Cane had won the WC. > It was never easy to see where Cane, or even if, he would fit into Robertson’s squad given the new coach will want to be building a new-look team with 2027 in mind. > Cane will win his selections on merit and come the end of the year, he’ll sign off, he hopes, with 100 caps and maybe even, at last, universal public appreciation for what was a special career. No, he won’t. Those returning from Japan have already earned the right to retain their jersey, it’s in their contract. Cane would have been playing against England if he was ready, and found it very hard to keep his place. Perform, and they keep it however. Very easy to see where Cane could have fit, very hard to see how he could have accomplished it choosing this year as his sabbatical instead of 2025, and that’s how it played out (though I assume we now know what when NZR said they were allowing him to move his sabbatical forward and return to NZ next year, they had actually agreed to simply select him for the All Blacks from overseas, without any chance he was going to play in NZ again). With a mammoth season of 15 All Black games they might as well get some value out of his years contract, though even with him being of equal character to Richie, I don’t think they should guarantee him his 100 caps. That’s not what the All Blacks should be about. He absolutely has to play winning football.
5 Go to commentswhat’s happening to Ian Peel?
1 Go to commentsAs a Crusaders fan , so disappointed , again.But I think Fergus Burke was all class for the Crusaders in his first game since October last year. Fletcher Newell , was so good at prop. Johnny McNicoll has been gold since returning from Wales. Noah Hotham brilliant , in a coming of age second season for the Crusaders.Jone Rova did really well at centre. The end of the game was tough.Sevu Reece , what a game/season in tough times.
6 Go to commentsFellas a balloon
3 Go to comments