OPINION: 'Bitter-sweet' result for Ulster
A TYPICALLY frenetic final weekend of group games underlined the intoxicating magic of the Heineken Cup as fortunes fluctuated and calculators combusted, but when the roller-coaster ride finished it was Ulster left with the sour-tasting dregs.
If it was a bitter-sweet Saturday as Ulster's first-ever Euro win on English soil proved insufficient to secure quarter-final qualification, subsequently seeing an Amlin Challenge Cup escape route ripped away was much harder to swallow.
As Gloucester and Cardiff ran riot, the nightmare needed to deny Brian McLaughlin's men one of those three tickets transpired, leaving Ulster Rugby red-faced after claiming on their website that the men in white were through.
Much as we've waited an age and the Heineken Cup is so important, not least to former champions and a team which has failed to get out of their Pool for the past decade, having Ulster's elimination from that competition confirmed didn't feel too terrible.
After all we're well used to early European exits and, this time, on the back of an extremely encouraging ending of the drought in England, a ticket to the second tier tournament quarters was an attractive alternative.
Ever since slipping up at Murrayfield in October, Ulster looked long shots to progress in the Heineken but having the Challenge Cup consolation cruelly snatched away as well will sadly steal some focus from what was a step forward for this team.
It will also deny Ulster a good opportunity to test themselves in what would have been a first European quarter-final of any sort since 1998 and a chance to win again in England or end their French famine.
For an ambitious bunch that's a real pity, but a Celtic League play-off place is still on offer and achieving a top four finish in the Magners would constitute a successful season for Ulster.
Although Ulster hadn't the toughest Euro group this term and restoring Ravenhill's reputation as a fortress kept them in contention to progress up until the end, we mustn't forget the mess McLaughlin inherited some six months ago.
In this light, one always felt that this season should be measured by the Magners as it is a competition in which inconsistency can be allowed for and incremental progress rewarded – whereas one bad day out often sinks sides in Europe, as that first Edinburgh encounter illustrates.
This team's at a stage of development which will see some winnable games going past them but that's a lot less costly in a long league campaign.
An Amlin quarter-final thanks to the new format would have been a big bonus and a day out for fans, but lifting that trophy would have been far from easy. And Saturday still gave us reasons to be cheerful.
This column makes no apologies about being a strong supporter of the current coaching ticket from the start but there are real reasons to talk up the value of the weekend win even though it hasn't directly delivered an extended Euro run.
Of course results in individual matches are only a means to an end and Ulster are out of Europe but, for them anyway at the time, this wasn't a dead rubber and the historical context – of always losing in England – must be taken into account.
Admittedly, there have been better Bath teams through the years.
Granted, this one had nothing tangible to play for on Saturday. Sure, Ulster enjoyed a numerical advantage for more than half the game.
But beating an English club on their own patch is something which Ulster had failed to do in 11 previous attempts and, as McLaughlin succinctly said, that had become a monkey on the back.
It's something sides coached by European Cup-winning boss Harry Williams, the still-revered Alan Solomons, Celtic League-winning supremo Mark McCall and much-hyped Aussie Matt Williams didn't manage.
For example, the season Ulster won the trophy – and produced superb performances in the knockout stages – they snatched a win in Edinburgh but doing the double over Ebbw Vale was a lot less exacting than beating Bath twice.
Perhaps Roy Keane would consider any attempt to present Saturday as a small success typical of our tendency to glorify failure – and the reality is that Ulster are out of Europe while Munster and Leinster look forward to home Heineken quarter-finals.
That's frustrating for those of us weaned on the glory days of the late 1980s but we are where we are and ambition must be tempered by realism, with targets set accordingly.
Ulster have fallen short this time but continue to make progress and increase capacity to challenge more meaningfully in the seasons ahead.
Meantime we should savour that Trimble try rather than crying over spilt milk or missed bonus points!
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Weather for Belfast
Tuesday 29 May 2012
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