The thought of Ulster not playing in the Heineken Cup next season was one foremost in everyone’s mind. But it came good in the end and while it may have been a somewhat disappointing season in the end, Ulster are in Europe’s elite next season.
It comes down to consistency in performance and over the past month one player on the Ulster side has continually produced – winger Andrew Trimble – and he gets the In Touch Man of the Month award for April.
He scored an absolutely sublime try against Bath as Ulster almost achieved one goal for the season in making the knockout stages of Europe – either last eight in Heineken or Amlin.
But Ulster’s season spluttered after that, not just because of the Six Nations break, but because of a lack of consistency and possibly even belief in themselves having failed in Europe.
The win against Edinburgh – a five pointer and at Murrayfield – saw a coming together of the little things which had been hurting the side in the previous six games which read one draw and five defeats. It was an honest assessment from Ulster winger, Andrew Trimble, when he said there was an improved performance each week in the previous games, but it was still not good enough.
The frustration was clear to be seen and heard from Trimble. However, there are no points for endeavour in the Magners League Trimble said:
“We have gradually got better and better since the poor performance against Scarlets. There has been a gradual improvement in our game.
here were great bits and pieces in previous game, but too often we were guilty of making silly mistakes and giving away soft points which proved so costly for us.We are just giving scores easily to the opposition, and it is particularly annoying because we work so hard to get the scores we do. We scored two tremendous tries against Ospreys, but we gave them some easy ones as well.
When we were chasing the game at the end, having been in a position to win it, the breakaway score for Tommy (Bowe) was gutting. They did not work hard for that.
We paid the price by not being efficient, having lapses in concentration. It is really frustrating that we cannot eradicate this from our system.”
The Irish management were at Ravenhill en mass on for the rearranged Ospreys fixture and Trimble probably booked himself a place on the Irish tour down under this summer with a good performance.
Ulster will finish eighth in the Magners League this season at worst, the same as last year and Trimble said:
“It is not the place we want to be in, nor is it the place we should be. I think there may be a bit of lingering hangover from the victory in Bath in the Heineken Cup. The other Irish Provinces have had something to really go for having made the last eight – now they are in the last four – while we do not even have the top four in the Magners League to aim for now.”
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