Former Ulster Coach Mark McCall has said that he feels Ulster have a 50\/50 chance of overcoming Leinster in the Heineken Cup Final at Twickenham on 19th May.<\/p>\n
McCall left Ulster in 2007 and took up a coaching position for French Top 14 side Castres before joining Saracens in 2009. Saracens host Exeter Chiefs this weekend in the final round of Premiership action before the play-offs and while they have already secured a spot in the top four, a home draw is at stake.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a remarkable achievement to have turned around the situation that Ulster were in three years ago to a European Cup Final and to assembled the squad that they have. I think a lot of people deserve to get a lot of credit for that and it\u2019s a brilliant achievement.”<\/p>\n
“I think David Humphreys deserves a great amount of credit for the recruitment job he\u2019s done; not only has be managed to bring world class players to Belfast to supplement the local talent but they\u2019re also very influential and good people who have helped to create a very good culture at the province.”<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me the final is a 50\/50 game. When Ulster have their best team on the pitch and when they bring their best game, which they are more than capable of doing, then they have every chance.”<\/p>\n
“Leinster are a great side and they\u2019ve had a phenomenal season. Their win\/loss record is incredible but Ulster\u2019s set-piece is a real strength at the moment. I thought Declan Fitzpatrick did brilliantly on the weekend and assuming that John Afoa comes back in they really do have a scrum to be reckoned with which is very important at that level of rugby.”<\/p>\n
“Ulster’s lineout is a real trump card and they could put Leinster under some pressure there in the final \u2013 they\u2019ve just got players that are on form and for me it\u2019s a 50\/50 game.”<\/p>\n
McCall who captained the Ulster team in the 1998\/99 season missed the final against Colomiers due to injury and while he still looks back fondly on the campaign, he feels that Ulster have really entered a new chapter;<\/p>\n
“1999 was a long time ago now. It was important and will always be special for those of us who were involved in it, but for me, the quarter-final game against Munster was a real defining moment for Ulster in terms of their record in the Heineken Cup competition. Defeating Munster down there in such an important game is almost like a changing of the guard in some respects.”<\/p>\n
So given his links to the province, will McCall and his family be at Twickenham for the final? Absolutely<\/p>\n
“We have three families coming to stay in our house on the weekend of the game so we\u2019re fully booked and have all got our tickets. I will definitely be wearing something red and white on that day!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Ulster Coach Mark McCall has said that he feels Ulster have a 50\/50 chance of overcoming Leinster in the Heineken Cup Final at Twickenham on 19th May. McCall left Ulster in 2007 and took up a coaching position for French Top 14 side Castres before joining Saracens in 2009. Saracens host Exeter Chiefs this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10193,3],"tags":[10194,5519,4773,5848,2994,5809,7245],"class_list":["post-26594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mark-mccall","category-ulster-rugby","tag-10194","tag-cup","tag-final","tag-game","tag-heineken","tag-mark","tag-mccall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26594"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26596,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26594\/revisions\/26596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}