Ulster ride momentum back to the top table

Rugby:  Johnny Wattersonlooks at the re-emergence of a strong core of Ulster players on the Irish team

In the old days Eddie O'Sullivan might have been cast out as a heretic. A two-province side with just an Ulster name or two on the bench would have been seen as a bitterly divisive way to select an Irish team. It was never that way traditionally, but just over a year ago, O'Sullivan was doing just that. The Galway man was sending out Leinster and Munster with a couple of Wild Geese and challenging those in the vicinity to knock the logic of his selections.

There were quibbles over the composition of the back row or where Geordan Murphy should play, or who could replace John Hayes if a bullock knocked him down, but there were few claims that more Ulster players should have been in the squad.

It was, in a sense, an acceptance of how rugby had become. O'Sullivan would line out the entire Ulster team if it suited his purpose to put the best side on the pitch.

Similarly, he would leave most of Mark McCall's players in Belfast if he believed Ireland would gain a scintilla of advantage from it. So he did just that.

Ulster didn't say no. There were no incandescent calls to The Joe Duffy Show. Pat Kenny didn't make it part of his banter in the morning sports slot. Ulster bit their lips, kept their heads up and then came a Celtic League win and this year's autumn internationals.

From just bench representation from Ulster before last season, suddenly the province had Bryan Young, Rory Best, Simon Best, Paddy Wallace, Andrew Trimble, Isaac Boss, Neil Best, Stephen Ferris and probably Tommy Bowe had he been fit to play in the three-match series.

The province's input might have looked remarkable from the outside. When Ferris appeared on the flank, Boss at nine and Wallace at 10, those who hadn't been watching Ulster closely over the past 18 months would have found this Irish team a strange place.

In Belfast they saw it all as a natural process with the exception of Ferris, whose explosive entry to the elite club came almost as quickly as that of the 19-year-old Leinster winger Luke Fitzgerald. Ferris played his first game of rugby for Ulster last February and nine months later was capped.

"Not long ago there was a barren period on the Irish team in terms of players. David Humphreys was our sole representative," says Ulster fullback Bryn Cunningham. "Definitely, we've moved on from a year ago. In terms of the personnel it hasn't changed a lot. More than anything it's momentum. It's building up a bit of confidence, winning a few more matches last year and at the beginning of the year. That makes training better. People are more upbeat and being more confident comes out on the pitch too.

"We are willing to take a few more chances, to play slightly more open, attacking rugby. I don't think people look at us any more and say we are a forward-dominated, set-piece side relying on the kicking of David Humphreys. I think now they will look at us and see that there are a lot of threats all over the field.

"I don't think it was irritating to be characterised like that. I think it spurs you on to show something else, another side to your game that would get people thinking. I think that's what we have achieved.

"I think the players have gotten better too. I mean if you are a player in your mid or late 20s you are not going to massively develop your play year on year. You are going to look for small improvements. We have a core of our squad in and around the mid 20s and really what's happening with those guys is that three years ago they were a little bit green. Now, not only have they developed physically through the gym and work on the pitch but mentally too."

Long before this Ulster renaissance, the seeds had been sown. While there is a little reluctance to elaborate on or celebrate the success of the recent month, given that Leinster might effectively burst their good-vibe bubble this evening in Ravenhill, coach Mark McCall has reason to feel vindicated with the process he has taken on from Allen Clarke and the Ulster academy.

There was a time in the 2004-2005 season where the young coach dreaded the post-match analysis with the press. That season they won 10 matches and lost 11. Most of the league season McCall was asked to explain defeat. The Heineken European Cup wasn't much better. Losing three and winning three in their pool, Ulster failed to reach the knockout stages.

The crowd for Ulster's home game against Leinster on September 11th, 2004, was 6,100. Tonight they have sold out the ground's 14,000 capacity. So far this season in the league, Ravenhill Road has attracted 8,265 for the game against Llanelli, 10,804 for the Ospreys match, 9,979 for Cardiff and 10,452 for Border Reivers. Borders struggle every week to break the 1,000 mark for their home matches. It can be safely deduced that almost all of those 10,452 spectators were from Ulster. Not just the players have noticed the improvement.

"The fact is that our team has changed dramatically over the last two-and-a-half years," says McCall. "From the 30-man squad we had two or three years ago, there are probably about eight or nine of those players left. There have been a lot of changes. It has been a very young squad (this year) and they've brought a lot of freshness.

"But a key is that players who have come back from their time with Ireland now come back with a confidence and a self-belief which that brings. Rather than having two players coming back, which was the case two years ago, we've got more. When you've got young players coming back with improved confidence, it is bound to have a knock-on effect."

While Boss was parachuted into the Irish system as a ready made scrumhalf, the rest of the contributors to O'Sullivan's recent experiments have been proudly home-grown, plucked from the schools and university systems and nurtured.

It wasn't always that way, and in the past Ulster had witnessed a drain of talent away from the province.

It has been a proactive process to keep players in Ireland, and from a poor strike rate a few years ago, the success at holding on to talent in recent years has been a significant net contributor.

But where did the turnaround come and what was the catalyst?

"There is not an easy answer but the academy set up by the Ulster branch and run by Allen Clarke, which took off four or five years ago, was an essential requirement for us, maybe more than for any of the other provinces," says McCall.

"We were in a situation where a lot of our best talent went to university across the water - Went to England, went to Scotland. We knew that we couldn't keep tabs on these players. That and knowing about 80 per cent of the Ulster Schools team went away and we lost them from the system. Now it's a 100 per cent stay from the schools. People now want to stay in the system. There have probably been 10 new caps for Ulster in the last 15 months.

"Matt McCullough, Rory Best, Bryan Young, Roger Wilson, Stephen Ferris, Andrew Trimble were all at the academy and some of them were brought back from across the water to come into the academy. Tommy (Bowe) was on his way to Scotland. Roger Wilson and Matt McCullough were at Trinity. We knew we had a good crop of players and that was clear to everybody in the Ulster Branch a few years ago. It was just a matter of time.

"We all saw them coming through. No one could say at that stage what player would eventually go through and play for Ireland. You had hunches about a couple of players . . . but a couple of them came through much quicker than we thought."

That was also the view of tighthead prop Simon Best. When Ferris arrived as a club player from Dungannon, all he saw was raw material. The shaping and presentation of Ferris in such quick time has been one of Ulster's more extravagant successes.

"I'd heard a lot of reference to him (Ferris) as a freak of nature," says Best. "I'd been told about a guy who had been playing Irish under-21s a year or two before his time and was playing well for Dungannon. When he first came up he was a big lump, a wee bit rough at the edges. But he learned extremely quickly. To be fair to Stephen, when he got his opportunity he took it. Like a lot of the guys he has age on his side too."

As much as Ferris and his meteoric rise, Paddy Wallace's elevation and performance on demand at the higher level has turned heads. Wallace arrived in Lansdowne Road after a poor start to last season. As he struggled to hold down a regular place in the Ulster side, the feeling outside the province was that here was an underage talent who had soldiered with Brian O'Driscoll but was struggling to punch his weight in the second tier of rugby.

If anyone's struggle represents what Ulster tenacity and doggedness is about it is Wallace's turnaround. Being picked from Ulster's centre and thrown into Ronan O'Gara's securely held position for a one-off trial might have buried the careers of a number of people.

"Paddy Wallace wasn't anywhere at this stage of the season last year," acknowledges Best.

"Last week he started for Ireland. It took him to the third-last game of the season last year to really establish himself in the team. The example there has really rubbed off on the rest of the squad. They know that, although they might not be in the position now, they might easily find themselves in a European Cup quarter- or semi-final through injury or form or whatever.

"We've been lucky with the likes of Tommy (Bowe), Andrew (Trimble) and Paddy. We have strike runners who are capable of scoring tries from everywhere and we have a wide game. There are also guys pushing through now who haven't even had a game before, like Paul McKenzie (Under-21 World Cup winger) and the like."

Ulster players are not hopping around with glee. There was no evident swagger at their low-key weekly conference earlier this week. It's just not their style. Nor have the established players been overlooked, the key individuals who won't see 30 again and with whom the younger players coalesce - Humphreys, Justin Harrison, Paul Steinmetz.

"It isn't that difficult spotting talent in Ulster because we don't have a huge number of rugby players," says McCall.

"But we have to ensure that the good ones are going to stay and realise their potential. That's what has happened over the last four or five years. We've taken some of those younger players out of the academy very early and brought them into the senior squad when they're 19. Leinster have done the same. That fast-tracking can sometimes occur better and easier away from their peer group, and that has been the case with Andrew Trimble and Stephen Ferris."

So O'Sullivan has created more self-inflicted Six Nations headaches, created a coach's paradise with far more players than places. And for Ulster the international landscape looks more promising and O'Sullivan no longer needs to indulge in heresy.

NEIL BEST

Flanker: Born April 1979. Earned first cap in November of last year against New Zealand as a permanent replacement. Has since lined out seven times for Ireland, most recently against South Africa and Australia.

PADDY WALLACE

Outhalf/centre: Born August 1979. Slow start to last season with Ulster but steadily improved. Was used as a replacement against South Africa last month before getting his first Test start against the Pacific Islands. Plays a number of positions.

STEPHEN FERRIS

Backrow: Born August 1985. The Dungannon player was not even in the Ulster starting team until February but impressed enough to get into the 32-man training squad before starting in his first Irish game against the Pacific Islands last month.

ANDREW TRIMBLE

Wing/centre: Born October 1984. The dynamic runner earned his first cap in November of last year against Australia and has won 12 caps since then. Injured hamstring playing against South Africa in the recent autumn series

SIMON BEST

Prop: Born February 1978. First cap against Tonga during Ireland tour there in 2003. Used as a bench replacement in all of Ireland's Six nations Championship matches this year and most recently played against the Pacific Islands.

BRYAN YOUNG

Prop: Born June 1981. earned first cap in Ireland's tour to New Zealand during the summer as a bench replacement. Most recently started against the Pacific Islands for his fifth cap after Marcus Horan was injured.

ISAAC BOSS

Scrumhalf: Born April 1980. Born in Tokoroa in New Zealand, Boss now has five Ireland caps, all of them earned this year. Recently got his first Test start at Lansdowne Road against Australia and came on as a replacement against the Pacific Islands.

RORY BEST

Prop: Born August 1982. Brother of Simon. First broke into the team against New Zealand in 2005 and has since played seven times for Ireland. Was in the starting line-up against South Africa and Australia in last month's series and came off the bench against the Pacific Islands.