A snub to Williams' European conquest

Last Friday, eight of the finest sporting judges in the land, sports editors one and all, chose Sean Boylan ahead of Harry Williams among others as the Philips Manager of the Year. And who are we to argue with such Fountains of Knowledge, such Sporting Oracles, least of all their humble servants.

Never mind that under Williams, Ulster had conquered Europe, providing memorable wins over Toulouse and Stade Francais that would last a lifetime, and culminating in that fairytale finale in Lansdowne Road against Colomiers, which united the country behind the White Knights for one glorious day. Ulster, with Williams as its urbane figurehead, had transcended all boundaries.

One of the unspoken arguments in selecting Boylan over Williams was that the European Cup had been missing the English clubs. How annoying that this argument might come from within these shores, and how ironic. After all, the All-Ireland was as usual missing everyone else. Boylan's Meath had merely won an exclusively domestic squabble.

Granted, Boylan is peerless among his peers, and has been over almost two decades. That he'd only won two Philips monthly awards seems bizarre and last Thursday's award only partially rectified the imbalance.

In any year without a significant European or World conquest in another sport, the Manager (Coach) of the Year should arguably go automatically to the September winner, for as domestic squabbles go none come bigger than the All-Ireland. But 1999 was an exception - even if most of Ulster's best work had been done in 1998 - and it was the only year since Mick Doyle won the Manager of the Year award in 1985 when there was an argument in favour of an Irish rugby coach.

Not that it mattered a jot to the easy-going and humble Williams. Far more upsetting to him in the BBC Northern Ireland post-match interview was the booing and abuse which had rained down on a rainy Friday night in Ravenhill after the heavy home defeat to Llanelli. (Given the timing of the Philips award a day before, perhaps the Octet of Oracles are even wiser than we realise).

It will have upset Williams just as much that one of his predecessors, Jim Davidson, had weighed in even more heavily in his post-match summary, albeit more constructively. As well as pinpointing the obvious vulnerability on their own set-pieces, Davidson had focused heavily on the poor body positioning of the fringe Ulster defenders before the tackle.

Even though one of the criticisms from within the province is that they haven't been training well enough, they look an utterly bunched bunch, and it's surely too glib and simplistic to claim that the influx of a few non-Ulstermen has diluted Ulster's identity. For sure, some of the departed heroes of last season seem sorely missed, not least the veteran tighthead Rab Irwin, who at least locked the Ulster scrum for the first hour. In his stead, the signing of Joeli Veitayaki is more in keeping with some of Leinster's dubious sorties into the overseas transfer market.

Likewise, they haven't replaced the steadying head of Andy Matchett, but many others are clearly nursing World Cup hangovers. This is not an exclusively Ulster problem, and can be located in the post-World Cup performances of players in the other home countries and, less so, in France as well. So why haven't Munster's Irish contingent been as affected?

Perhaps because there were fewer of them but primarily because they returned from Lens and focused straight away on a winning environment. Even though Irish rugby scarcely gave a post-World Cup hoot, the likes of Keith Wood and Mike Mullins couldn't stress enough how psychologically valuable it was to resume winning ways at home to Ulster nine days later.

IT helped that Munster coach Declan Kidney had the luxury of promoting Peter Stringer ahead of Ireland's two World Cup scrum-halves and that he had plenty of others who were absent from the World Cup and felt they had a point to prove.

They are a more rounded team, who are beginning to engender an Ulster-type momentum, even if they might never help us all to scale the emotional highs Ulster did last season. Their displays in winning away to Saracens and Colomiers compare favourably to Ulster's last season, purely as one-off rugby performances.

Before these wins Irish provinces had drawn 10 blanks on English and French soil. Thus, breaking both ducks in back-to-back away matches and scoring four cracking tries in each game will have enabled them to bridge a huge mental hurdle.

It's worth noting that before the weekend, there were only four previous European Cup away wins on French soil - by Leicester (in Toulouse and Pau), Harlequins (in Bourgoin) and Bath, when they beat Brive in the final in Bordeaux two seasons ago.

But for Munster's performances, Ireland's record in this season's European Cup might be heading toward the worst ever. As it is, it's about normal at a winning ratio of 44 per cent. Across the board though, there's been a levelling out of standards, with the travails of the French and English away from home bringing them back to the pack.

Most marked of all has been the Scots' improvement. Glasgow Caldedonians provided them with a first Euro Cup win over English opposition with Sunday's 30-17 win over Leicester. This was handsome revenge for the 90-19 play-off defeat of two seasons ago and leaves both them and Edinburgh Reivers in knockout contention with a combined winning rate of 66 per cent.

No doubt this will provide sustenance to those who have been lobbying for Ireland to merge the four provinces into two similar super districts. Perhaps they could be called Munacht and Ulsleins, or Northern Irish Ramblers and Southern Irish Rangers.

Aside from completely diluting the provinces' individual identities and traditions, it would also halve the number of Irish players being exposed to representative rugby, thereby doing the national team a disservice. It would also be the final irrefutable proof that the lunatics have truly taken over the asylum at 62 Lansdowne Road.