MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS
Ulster’s trip to the Alps expected to yield a win
ULSTER had boarded the bus en route to Stade Charles Mathon for their opening Champions Cup fixture when the call came through that their match was postponed. Given the previous day’s terrorist atrocities in Paris it was an understandable decision by tournament organisers EPCR even though Ulster were 490 kilometres south for their scheduled game with Oyonnax.
Ulster’s forwards coach Allen Clarke, a hooker on the 1999 European Cup winning side, was helping to prepare the team as normal for a massive game when the decision was made.
‘We’d seen the circumstances from Paris on the Friday evening and were due to play on Saturday at one o’clock and were going ahead with our business,’ Clarke recalls. ‘There had been no update from EPCR in terms of games on or off outside of Paris.
‘It was only when we were getting in the bus to go to the stadium, which was a five-minute journey, when we were actually informed the game had been postponed.
‘The players were carb-loaded so there was a lot of energy floating around, but there was understanding as the decision really brought home the tragedy.’
Eight weeks on Ulster are facing a very different test to the one that was expected on November 14.
Back then Ulster had prepared for a hostile away trip against an unfashionable French outfit making its European Cup debut – a weekend-long festival had been organised in the Alpine town to go hand in hand with the partisan matchday atmosphere.
The situation has changed and yesterday Ulster returned to a very different scenario after flying in to Geneva and bussing it across the border from Switzerland.
Europe is no longer high on the Oyonnax agenda, three pool defeats shifting their focus to domestic matters, where avoiding Top 14 relegation is the priority.
AGENEROUS Ulster win is expected, something of a novelty given their experiences in France in the past 15 years or thereabouts.
Last month’s raid in Toulouse, however, demonstrated that away days are no longer to be feared. Clarke (right), though, is only worried about this season and four or five points today would be huge.
‘Victory would be excellent in terms of winning in France but more importantly in terms of the present situation in the group. It would mean we would go into our next game at Saracens with something exceptional to play for,’ Clarke reckons, quite a turnaround from the gloomy November forecasts which effectively concluded that Ulster were already out after the home defeat to the Londoners.
‘The reaction of everyone associated with Ulster rugby has been fantastic and we want to ensure those wins over Toulouse aren’t wasted. We want to ensure we build on that this weekend so that we’re still in the group the following week.’
‘It’s a competition that is getting tougher and tougher. You look at the quality throughout the groups and qualification is still up in the air as to who is going to come out as pool winners, never mind the best runners up.
‘But teams like Ulster certainly aspire to be in the knockout stages. It’s a barometer we set for ourselves in terms of success and failure.’
Clarke is delighted to be back in the thick of it having opted to step away as assistant coach to Mark McCall in 2007 to nurture grassroots growth around the island as the IRFU’s age grade high performance manager.
He kept his hand in coaching-wise with the national Under 20s and felt an itch needed to be scratched by coming home to Belfast in 2012, his initial elite player development role the springboard to his appointment as senior team forwards coach at the start of last season.
‘When I went into the IRFU I probably had around five years in my mind in terms of putting together an age grade programme that would create a player development pathway for young players to come through. Once that pathway was up and running I always had that itch to go back and coach again and when the call came, the timing was perfect,’ he says.
Clarke now hopes Ulster’s revolving door has finally stopped spinning with the arrival in November of Les Kiss, leaving the squad to at last aspire to a period of stability after so many recent staff comings and goings.
‘His man-management has been excellent. He has the ability to be empathic but also to be strong and ruthless when required, but it’s done in the right way. It’s a tremendous range of management ability to have,’ Clarke insists.
Kiss has led the way in getting Ulster back in the European hunt.