Is it starting to hit home yet?

[Bart S]

Ulster don’t just need good players, they need some talisman upfront who will not give an inch and drive on others. Hendy is a great player but comes across as a bit of a reluctant leader.

The 2012 team which reached the final had Afoa, Muller and Wannenburg with Ferris in there as well. We have Marcel maybe and Jordi , although not sure if he is a talisman or just a good player.

These kind of leaders don’t grow on trees and if we can get them from elsewhere as a short term fix to help our young guns develop then we should do it.

[BR]

Anybody think we’ll get a medical joker for Cooney?

We went to great lengths to sign an Irish International scrum half over the summer.. maybe we should kept it free for an injury joker.. where is he btw?

Richmond?

[Big-al]

Does anyone think a squad chock full of players from Eire is the future for a successful Ulster?

Wise up... Give me a dub with a chip on his shoulder ahead of any entitled Ulster man any day.

The players from other provinces have been great. cooney, AOC and Timoney are Ulster men to me

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Just a pity Timoney and AOC aren't very good.

[solidarity]

Forgive me for a question to help me get things in perspective. What would a 'born in Ulster' XV look like? To be honest, I'm never absolutely sure who is from where. How would a 'born in Ulster' XV fare against a 'born elsewhere but playing in Ulster' team? How about a 'born in Ulster including those playing outside Ulster' XV?

[LegsLikeSausages]

Forgive me for a question to help me get things in perspective. What would a 'born in Ulster' XV look like? To be honest, I'm never absolutely sure who is from where. How would a 'born in Ulster' XV fare against a 'born elsewhere but playing in Ulster' team? How about a 'born in Ulster including those playing outside Ulster' XV?

Ok. Purely because I wanted to see if I could name one, here is a pointless born in Ulster XV-

1. McAllister (although isn’t he American or something, ok start again)

1. McCall
2. Best
3. Kane
4. Henderson
5. Ermmmm, Thompson? Montgomery? Some other Academy prospect
6. One of the Reas
7. Henry or another Rea
8. How many Reas have we got?
9. Stewart
10. Jackson
11. Stockdale
12. Olding or McCloskey
13. Cave or Whitten
14. Kernohan
15. Gilroy (maybe swap with Stockdale)

16. McBurney
17. Warwick
18. Bring back Simpson (O’Toole is an Aussie), does Lutton still tog our for Ballyclare?
19. Ermm, is the Rocket still playing?
20. Remind me of the Rea status again?
21. Someone defrost O’Donnell- he’s been frozen out
22. Steenson
23. Hume or Moore

[LegsLikeSausages]

Incidentally, before people start correcting my ‘pointless born in Ulster XV’ or telling me who I’ve left out, I really couldn’t be arsed. Which is very much in the spirit in which I wrote it.

[Tender]

Deysel has lost whatever mojo he had and our other NIQ The Invisible Hond, isn’t good enough to play for Omagh. How Rodney got another contract is baffling. Treadwell is phoning it in.
That’s four lumps of dead wood.
We don’t learn, we repeat.

[HammerTime]

It's not about an Ulster born and bred 15. That is always going to be average at best. It's about 3-4 top Ulster players along with maybe 6-7 who are the next level down SUPPLEMENTED by 4 world class imports (not the dirt we've been accepting the last 4-5 years) and a good promising project player (again recently, pure muck). The 6-7 average players when playing with the class above them of local and foreign usually raise their game to get to the higher level. It worked before.

[Dave]

What is needed:

1) A new no-nonsense CEO. Doesn't do BS. Will stand up to that shower in D4.
2) Four grade A and bulletproof NIQs: Prop second row, backrow and a back (centre/wing) or project 9. If Bryn can't deliver on this he can FO.
3) Bring our boys home.
4) The band removed permanently.

[Russ]

We need WJMcB to give a rousing speech about what it means to play for Ulster
His last one was before the Jihad

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[rocky]

There are no more project players since they changed the rules about eligibility and qualification.
We can't afford high quality, expensive NIQs right now.
We do need to have a further cull players who won't or don't make the grade and, as Baggy says, we are at the start of a process that will take a few years. There are good signs that the academy is now functioning properly and starting to deliver good young players into the mainstream; hopefully, that should continue.
Our new CEO should be announced within a few weeks but I'm not sure how big an influence he or she has on entirely rugby matters.

[Dave]

Sounds like we are fecked.

[solidarity]

It's not about an Ulster born and bred 15. That is always going to be average at best. It's about 3-4 top Ulster players along with maybe 6-7 who are the next level down SUPPLEMENTED by 4 world class imports (not the dirt we've been accepting the last 4-5 years) and a good promising project player (again recently, pure muck). The 6-7 average players when playing with the class above them of local and foreign usually raise their game to get to the higher level. It worked before.

Absolutely right, Hammer. I don't think these days an Ulster born and bred XV is on the cards at all. I don't really even want one, I just wasn't sure if I could even name a locally B&B XV. But, if we don't grow our own, we're always going to be living off someone else's cast-offs and that's the road to no town. We'll never have the money or permission to buy in real quality players and I doubt that there are many top quality players around the world who are just longing to come to Belfast. It's the perennial problem of developing a 'conveyer belt' of talent through schools and clubs. For me it certainly is starting to hit home.

[HwoodMike2umate]

I know who I blame.

[Kofi Annan]

For me, Saturday was always going to happen, we will pick ourselves up and move on, Saturday was a disaster, that we all agree on but me, I am confident things are going in the right direction, just hope the new CEO sits back , learns , then , only then takes it forward.