INTERVIEW PADDY WALLACE:HARD TIMES. Charles Dickens used the novel of that name to emphasise the negative effects of the industrial revolution. For Ulster that came in 1995 with professionalism. Rugby became work and required money. They won the Heineken Cup in 1999 and then the real world crowded in and life became difficult. Since that famous final win over Colomier Ulster have not gotten past the group stages of the competition.
Paddy Wallace has watched for some eight years now as Leinster and Munster straddle the European nations and beat them more often than they lose and push their way regularly into the money making knock-out stages and beyond.
Leinster have attracted big players, while Ulster have turned over their own stock and tried to buy wisely on a budget. It hasn’t worked. When their captain Rory Best was injured earlier this year and told his season was over, there was no rush by Ulster to chase down an international hooker. It was make do.
Wallace says the players just get on with it and with the arrival of coach Brian McLaughlin they’ve broken new ground and charged into this week with winning form and some confidence. But they have had to look on at their more successful bigger brothers down south.
“Envious, definitely,” says Wallace of the two most recent European champions.
“Munster and Leinster have been a bench mark for us for the last eight seasons. Since I’ve been in the Heineken Cup I’ve seen Munster and Leinster get through almost every year very consistently. It’s been frustrating. You set a goal every year as a team and we’ve done it in Ulster every season as a team. We want to get out of our group. Nothing changes. I just think we may have a better chance this year.”
Wallace arrived back in the Ulster camp after a longer spell out. He’d had some head injuries and concussion last season that required some rest time and arrived to Barnett’s Park, a stretch of natural beauty on the river Lagan not far from the team’s Newforge Lane training ground, later in the season than the others.
Rising up from the river, there is a long, grassy hill that the squad had been using as a training run. For Wallace it was memorable, for the rest of the players light relief.
“On my second day back we were taken to Barnett’s Hill,” he says. “About 300 metres long. I vomited 14 times. That sort of set the scene for me. Guys had been at that two or three weeks before I’d come back.
“I’d a lengthy break from the game because of my head injuries last year so I was probably not coming into the pre-season as fit as I had the previous years. It was certainly a wake-up call. It was great seeing the guys out there work so hard and I think it helps bind you as a squad in these hard times.
“We’re in a tight spot,” he added. “If you’re reaching quarter-finals semi-finals or finals, you’re reaping the rewards of that, the money that comes in and you’re able to go out and attract the better players. We’re fighting hard. We’d love to be able to attract bigger names but at the moment we have to do the best with what we have.”
And they have. This season Ulster, under the former RBAI teacher McLaughlin, had a poor first game against Dragons but since then have blossomed.
“We let ourselves down with a poor performance against Dragons,” says Wallace.
“Since then we’ve turned it around, performance-wise, and results-wise and that’s culminated in 10 points in the last two games. There’s more confidence and the management aren’t scared in showing faith to players, no matter what age they are. They’ve shown they are not afraid to drop experienced players.”
Bath’s arrival on Friday requires a leap in standard. Ravenhill Road doesn’t hold the fear it once did.
But Wallace and Ulster will turn out with confidence not just hope.
