Ulster Rugby season preview: Nothing easy for McFarland’s men as they seek to build

Prospects

Last season was Ulster’s third under Dan McFarland and at face value it might not be interpreted as continuing the progress made in the first two campaigns under his watch.

Yet in actual fact they won 14 out of 16 matches in Conference A of the Pro14, compared to eight wins in 15 regular season games the season before when qualifying for the semi-finals and reaching the final.

Only the organizers’ decision to trim the play-off stages to just a final between the conference winners (Leinster and Munster) so as to accommodate the Rainbow Cup denied them another semi-final, and despite this McFarland points to Ulster have played in nine play-off matches over the last three seasons.

Nevertheless, their season rather ran aground on the back of four successive defeats, even if three of them were derby losses in that Rainbow Cup as well as the anti-climactic European Challenge Cup loss away to Leicester before they ended the season with an academic if pride-restoring win over Edinburgh.

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Silverware is again McFarland’s stated aim.

“The bottom line is that we want to win a trophy but that was the same last year, the same the year before that, the same the year before that. There are a chunk of teams like that.”

Akin to Munster, Ulster are seeking to end a trophy drought which extends even further, to the 2005-06 triumph in what was then the Celtic League.

The latter has had yet another reincarnation in the guise of the United Rugby Championship and, again akin to Munster, one of Ulster’s problems is that the competition has become stronger.

Not only are the four South African franchises now aboard, but the four Irish provinces have been drawn together in one group, meaning one-third of their fixtures are derbies and guaranteeing only the winners a passport into next season’s Heineken Champions Cup.

This looks like the season Eric O'Sullivan and the newly capped Tom O'Toole need to take a significant step forward

The other route will be to finish high enough in the top eight of the URC to not only qualify for the knockout stages in that competition but for the Champions Cup as well. As well as the improving Welsh and Scottish teams, yet again no-one looms larger on their horizons than Leinster.

Until their much-trumpeted signing of Duane Vermeulen after the flawed and abandoned Leone Nakarawa signing, Ulster had been quiet in the transfer market. But the Springbok number ‘8’ may not be available for some time and at 35 not only is he clearly past his brilliant best but will hardly be an upgrade on Marcell Coetzee (30), who was last season’s Pro14 Player of the Year.

Beefing up their tight five looked as much of a priority, as despite the production line of brilliant young backs such as Robert Baloucoune, James Hume, Stewart Moore, Michael Lowry and co, Ulster have not been producing forwards or halves for some time.

Jack McGrath’s absence until around the turn of the year is a blow, and this looks like the season Eric O’Sullivan and the newly capped Tom O’Toole need to take a significant step forward.

A tough Champions Cup draw has also pitted Ulster away to Clermont in their opening game, when a defeat would leave them no margin for error in their ensuing games against Northampton at home and away, and the return fixture with Clermont.

They may also have drawn the short straw in being handed their trek to South Africa immediately after the Six Nations, thus meaning internationals such as Iain Henderson will not be taking part in that safari.

Silverware would be quite an achievement.

Men in charge

McFarland enters his fourth season as head coach but there are a few significant changes among his backroom team, notably the former RBAI schools’ coach Dan Soper being promoted from his role as skills coach to fill the void left by the departure of Dwayne Peel to the Scarlets after four years with the province.

The three-times capped former All Blacks and Leicester Tigers openside Craig Newby has joined as skills coach while arguably the most influential signing of all has been that of the strength & conditioning coach Mikey Kiely, seen as a key cog in that role for Limerick’s back-to-back All-Ireland hurling title wins. He combined both roles over the summer before becoming a full-time member of the Ulster staff.

McFarland has never made any secret of his desire to make Ulster suitably equipped for a highly skilled, high-tempo game with high ball-in-play time

The fruits of the 32-year-old’s work are apparently already in evidence after the Ulster squad was ‘beasted’ in pre-season and after a 45-21 defeat at home by Saracens, confidence has been raised following the 33-3 win away to the same opponents last Thursday week.

“We looked at the physical aspect of the way that we want to play,” says McFarland. “We focused on that a fair bit over pre-season and developing that aspect and trying to find ways of pushing it which we were pretty good at anyway but we’ve pushed the envelope there.”

Potent as their lineout maul has been, on the premise that they are rarely going to outmuscle teams, McFarland has never made any secret of his desire to make Ulster suitably equipped for a highly skilled, high-tempo game with high ball-in-play time.

“There are also aspects around our game management and our ability to manage the middle third to stop teams getting into our 22 as often as they did last season,” said McFarland, who added that they needed to be more “ruthless” in the opposition 22 and have tweaked their attack with Soper bringing in some new ideas, while also “pushing the boundaries on our defence”.

“We are very happy with the philosophy of the way that we play but there are marginal gains in particular areas where we think we can squeeze bits out.”

Key man

John Cooney. His bridges with the Irish squad having seemingly been burnt for good, the match-winning, goal-kicking and talismanic scrumhalf can focus his ambitions solely on his province in what conceivably could be his last before moving abroad.

Cooney’s importance to the Ulster cause is underlined by his achievements in the 2020-21 Pro14, when he was the competition’s leading points-scorer with 115 and also had the most try assists (13) and clean breaks (22).

Ins

Duane Vermeulen (Bulls). Mick Kearney (Zebre).

Outs

Marcell Coetzee (Bulls), Louis Ludik (retired), Matt Faddes (Otago), Alby Mathewson (released), Adam McBurney (Edinburgh), Bill Johnson (Ealing Trailfinders), Kyle McCall (released).