PRO 12:LAMBS TO the slaughter they were not, but Ulster coach Brian McLaughlin stated the scheduling policy of RaboDirect Pro 12 forced his decision to field a severely understrength side on Monday evening at the RDS.
Almost entirely made up of ‘A’ squad players, Ulster lost 42-13 to a medium-strength Leinster side as McLaughlin rested his best players ahead of Friday’s sold-out meeting with Munster at Ravenhill.
There was another factor involved in the decision to downgrade this fixture. Ulster’s Irish internationals are unavailable, although Tom Court came off the bench in Dublin, as Andrew Trimble, Rory Best and Stephen Ferris joined this week’s pre-Six Nations gathering. Paddy Wallace is still injured.
“We did the exact same thing last year because of the scheduling,” McLaughlin explained. “We’ve Munster on Friday night. The majority of that team (fielded against Leinster) have been playing for the Ravens and doing exceptional well in the British and Irish Cup. We strengthened them with a bit of experience and we put them out there. Some people say it was lambs to the slaughter but I am 100 per cent happy about the effort and the way they conducted themselves.”
Ulster’s performance, until the last quarter, supported McLaughlin’s assertion. Winger Chris Cochrane’s powerful surge for an expertly taken try, when converted by James McKinney, left the score at 21-13. It stayed like that until the 68th minute when Leinster were awarded a penalty try. The far more experienced side then proceeded to pull away, crossing for six tries in total.
“We believe a four-day turnaround is not good player welfare,” added McLaughlin. “Boys being asked to play two huge big games in that space of time is unfair to them from our point of view. It was a decision that was made quite a long time ago. We had training with these boys through the Ravens and we knew that they were going to get a chance.
“I think they will learn from it. They defended well for long periods and then a little bit of inexperience, a little lack of communication maybe sometimes and we let a couple of soft scores in.”
The public announcer at the RDS stated during the game that 18,500 tickets had been “sold”. However, it was established in this newspaper recently that Leinster include their 13,500 season ticket holders in these figures. Clearly, several thousand of these supporters did not show up.
McLaughlin was asked how this one-time significant fixture can be returned to its rightful place.
“Munster are in the same boat too. The scheduling. If they want these big games they need to look at their scheduling.”
