Ulster "A" - what a good old fashioned name for a rugby side - head for Goldington Road on Saturday off the back of a big win against Bristol last week...
The score in Belfast was 30-5 but we had our own victory to crow about. Winning in Wales is never easy but the 35-6 win against the Scarlets Select in Carmarthen was another notable result for us this season.
We've got a few changes with Piers O’Conor, Dean Adamson, Jake Sharp and Jordan Burns in the backs and Alex Lundberg, Camilo Parilli-Ocampo and Josh Buggea up front.
Blues: 15. Piers O’Conor 14. Dean Adamson 13. Michael Le Bourgeois 12. Ollie Dodge 11. James Pritchard 10. Jake Sharp 9. Jordan Burns 1. Alex Lundberg 2. Sam James 3. Camilo Parilli-Ocampo 4. Mike Howard (capt) 5. Harry Wells 6. Justin Blanchet 7. Josh Buggea 8. Joel Conlon
Reps: 16. Charlie Clare 17. Jack Culverhouse 18. Mark Flanagan 19. Nick Fenton-Wells 20. Pete White 21. Myles Dorrian 22. Steffan Jones
No Sarries Dual Reg players in the squad this week . . . . And so it begins!!!
Lets hope this is a one off.
All the sides around us are recruiting to be stronger in the second half of the season so lets hope we keep the squad together that has got us to where we are.
No Thompson-Stringer, Alo, Perkins, Griffiths. Not overly concerned for the cup games but we will need their services to help push for the top 4.
Conlon needs some game time and has looked good, Culverhouse deserves an opportunity off the bench, Dodge played well in Wales and Pritchard would probably like a game where he may get more of the ball.
I said last week what a great spirit there is in this squad and I repeat it again. We beat a very good Ulster side today with several changes from last week but looked as though we had been playing together for weeks. Well played lads, Buggea my MOM closely followed by Ollie Dodge, although the whole match day squad played well.
Great spirit in the team, and it is fantastic to keep on winning,but did we really play well? Surely we are thanking the gods for the half dozen excellent chances which Ulster butchered. They had a 3 to 1 overlap on our right wing five or six times but managed to use it only once. Their kicker would be a good shout for our MoM, I would have thought. Our lineout struggled throughout and our scrum was massacred after the substitutions. For me it was 'thank the stars for a bit of luck and Jake's right foot'. I am very grateful to the team for giving us a so much better season, but I did not think they were in top form yesterday.
I think we might not have needed to thank their kicker for his missed penalties in the second half if we had been a little more pragmatic and kicked ours in the first. Kicking for the corner from a position in front of the posts seemed a tadge silly especially as they had shown how muscular their pack was ( emphasised by their several turnovers from choke tackles in the second half). We should have been out of sight by half time.
But isn't it great to have the confidence brimming over to take the difficult option and despite taking a bit of a hammering in the scrum in the closing stages , still coming out on top.
Odd that they didn't opt to kick for the corner more often given their forward power, a la Rotherham.
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