Ulster legends give their thoughts on province’s hopes for the future

The two Queen’s graduates were part of Jimmy Davidson’s side along with the likes of David Irwin, Willie Anderson and Phil Matthews that famously beat Australia at Ravenhill on 14th November 1984.

Philip ‘Chipper’ Rainey kicked the winning penalty in a 15-13 win over a Wallaby side that contained Michael Lynagh and David Campese.

That win over Australia started a halcyon period for Ulster as they won the Inter provincial championship for 10 consecutive years.

Last Sunday’s defeat by Toulouse in the European Cup quarter final, coming a week after losing the Pro14 final to Leinster, means Ulster’s wait for silverware will go into a 15th year.

Those reversals has also sparked a debate on why Ulster aren’t producing their own players.

Against Leinster three of Ulster’s 14 forwards in the match day squad were born in the province while against Toulouse Iain Henderson was the only home-grown player from 1-10 in the starting line up.

When Ulster beat Australia on that famous afternoon at Ravenhill 36 years ago the side contained all home-grown players, but Carr, a Triple Crown winner with Ireland in 1985, believes the game has changed with the advent of professionalism.

“Everybody would love to have an entirely indigenous side but the expectation now is Ulster are wanting to attract some of the greatest players from elsewhere in the world,” said the former flanker.

“We have seen with some of those players they can come here and perform on and off pitch to try and bring some of our talent coming through.”

“Ideally we’d like to see ourselves a bit more like the Leinster situation with the academy producing a real torrent of players coming through at the highest level.

“On the other side there have been players that we have been delighted to welcome to Northern Ireland and have performed for us.

“At least we are getting to finals but the two results have been pretty disappointing and bar the opening couple of minutes against Leinster we really haven’t been in either game.

“There are players coming through like Robert Balacoune showing a lot of potential.

“We were very fortune in that Australia game and that was really the start of that 10 -in-a-row where we won or shared the inter provincial title for a decade and we were the top dogs, these things come in cycles and you have to say we are not top dogs at the moment.

“At our time you really didn’t have anyone else bar an Ulsterman, it was all Ulstermen the furthest it would go would be someone playing for London Irish who’d come back to play for the province.

“There certainly was a very strong Ulster spirit at that time especially in the interprovincial matches for all sorts of reasons including the situation rugby was experiencing back in the mid 80’s.

“We were very lucky with the people that were around at that time, we had a reasonable crop of players, reasonably talented players and reasonably committed players and when you got them all together they bounced off each other and they was a really competitive spirt which drove everything forward as well.

“So if you were training you wanted to be faster than the fellow behind you, you wanted to be fitter, you wanted to score more tries, you wanted the man of the match performance, everybody wanted to do well.

“I think myself and other players if they were in another side where there wasn’t that competitive element we wouldn’t have done nearly as well and may not have had the chance to play at international level.”

Trevor Ringland, who won two Triple Crowns with Ireland, thinks more needs to be done below the professional game to develop players.

“I think there is a big responsibility on the youth section across the game to see if we can start to bring some good young players through because something certainly doesn’t seem to be working as well as it should be in getting the players through so the likes of Kieran Campbell and Willie Anderson get the hold of them and develop them as players,” said Ringland.

“So it is that schools and youth section that we need to put a bit of focus on to see if we can get the same as Leinster have, which is a good crop of young players coming through who have the necessary requirements to play at the top level.

“At the same time Ulster did really well this year getting to the Pro14 final and getting to the quarter finals of the European Cup.

“There have been some great players that have come here and made Ulster their home, John Cooney, Jordi Murphy and others and it is great to see them there and they really do perform for Ulster and the crowd really take them to their hearts.

“But they has to be a big emphasis on that schools and youth section to see how we can get some really good players coming through that see a career in professional rugby as being one of the choices they want to make.”

Ringland feels the only way players will get better is if they are on the pitch.

“I think there is certainly something wrong when players don’t play,” he said.

“I think they should to develop their game and it is that area we need to bring a real focus to, and there has to be a better link between the clubs and schools formed so players can move naturally between the schools and the clubs and that way it keeps the game healthy.

“I’m a great believer if you keep the foundations as broad as possible you will get great young players coming through.

“It’s finding that right balance between youth and looking after the amateur game and realising that it is important for the professional game that the amateur game thrives so we have to make sure it is a success too.”

Ringland looks back fondly to his glory days with Ulster fondly.

“It was pretty much a team of friends and teams of friends succeed,” he said.

“I think we all set our own standards high in levels or skills and fitness and then demanded that of each other.

“That was one of the key things we expected was others to perform as well as we expected ourselves to perform and that is what is at the heart of a success team.

“All those players on the current Ulster side were playing really well before lockdown but the break didn’t do them any favours.

“There are still some young players that are learning. I think Jacob Stockdale had a real lesson in wing play against Toulouse, I hope he is going to go away look at himself and say I need to learn from those mistakes and those experiences.

“He is a good player and he could be one of Ireland’s all-time great players and I hope he is, but he needs to learn from the experiences of the Toulouse match.

“There are some good players coming through like Balacoune, they have a good coach so hopefully they will take that experience from Toulouse and see if they can up their game a bit.”

Ringland and Carr think the ‘84 Ulster side would have held it’s own in the European Cup.

“We would have loved a crack at it,” he said.

“It seems strange but we had floodlights brought in, think they were called Lindsay’s lights after the president at the time, and that opened up the midweek game on a winter’s night.

“We played against teams from all around the world and performed pretty well against most of them and it created a bit of an atmosphere at that time.

“It was great to play in and I think the people that came to watch it from all over enjoyed it to.

“I like to think we would have given it a good shot anyway,” addeded Ringland.

“We sort of look enviously at the ‘99 side and the opportunity that they had and they took it with both hands.”

“We tried to take the opportunities that were available to us but it would have been nice to have a crack at the best sides and I don’t think we would have been too far off the mark and it might have been a case of on the day.

“Thinking back to Jimmy Davidson provincial rugby has changed so much not just in the style of the game but we only had a couple of friendlies at the start of the season then the interprovincial matches and maybe a touring side.

“I know Jimmy was keen to broaden the Ulster season but there was no one else to play as they were all involved in their own leagues.

“We would have loved to be playing more frequently in the higher standard matches,” added Carr.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription.

Subscribe to newsletter.co.uk and enjoy unlimited access to the best Northern Irish and UK news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you can read more than five articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit https://www.newsletter.co.uk/subscriptions now to sign up.

Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.

Thank you,

Alistair Bushe

Editor