By PeatFez
December 7 2005

PeatFez gives us his views on Saracens’ Pool 4, Match Day 3 trip to Ravenhill, the home of Ulster Rugby, this coming Friday evening, starting with a few happy memories of January 2001. It has been nearly five years since Sarries travelled to Ravenhill. That match back in January 2001 was memorable for many reasons. On a bleak and very cold night our Irish prop Paul Wallace broke his ankle, a certain Welshman became attached to an ice bucket and we were dumped out of the Heineken cup on points after winning the match 21-13. This was all the more galling after beating the Irish side at home 55-25 the previous October and ‘doing the double’ against the mighty Toulouse in the same competition.

So what can we expect this time? It seems strange that when the HC draw was first announced one or two people felt that Ulster were going to be an easy team to beat. Ulster were never going to be a pushover, with Irish Internationals like Andrew Trimble, Neil Best and David Humphreys who captained Ireland against the Romanians, on form, and the return from injury of Rory Best and Matt McCullough this side is oozing class and experience. Reading the reports of their last Heineken match away at Biarritz they were unlucky not to come away with a win, and only lost by 4 points 23-19 after been behind 17-3 early on. On top of this they meet us at home after beating rivals Munster away 17-20 last Saturday. Shane Byrne stated that Ravenhill was one of the most menacing places he has had to play at and was up there with Kingsholm as having some of the most partisan and intimidating crowds in either England or Ireland. This is made more daunting for the players by having to run the gauntlet of the Ulster faithful just to get onto the pitch and the fact that the majority of the crowd have attended the ‘Ian Paisley School of Voice’.

It goes without saying that Sarries have got to raise their game next Friday and we can only do that with a belief that we can win. We fielded a ‘weakened’ squad on Sunday against the mighty Wasps and the spirit shown by those guys needs to rub off on the lads on Friday. We have reported a lot of injuries recently, but even so I expect to see a full strength side on Friday. Our pack needs to be on form and with the return of TC, this time uninjured after playing for the French National side (It was just before we played Ulster at Ravenhill last time that TC damaged his Achilles tendon) I expect us to give the ‘Alstermen’ a run for their money.

I don’t want to predict a result for this first leg, which is probably just as well given that I’m languishing around the bottom of the prediction league at present, but I’m sure Sarries can win and let's all hope that after the match, the only happy ‘Red Hand’ in Ulster will belong to KB after slapping the arses of our pack across Ulster’s line for the umpteenth time.