Selection headache? “Yeah, definitely,” says Dan McFarland. What else could the Ulster coach say as they face “unbeatable” Leinster in Saturday’s Pro14 final. “We have a puncher’s chance,” he adds.
Leo Cullen knows how these things go before another piece of silver and kudos moves to within touching distance in this strangest of concertinaed seasons.
McFarland is an emotionally intelligent coach and knows what he is doing in shifting pressure loads as his Ulster side again face the team that has won six titles since the beginning of this century, more than any club and now going for their third in a row.
“They look unbeatable and they are unbeatable aren’t they,” he adds, building on to the narrative in the hope maybe Leinster players will undo themselves in believing it.
“Can they be beaten? Yeah. What else am I going to say. What have the bookies got us at? Minus 10? That’s a two-score deficit in a final. They are basically saying we’ve got no chance.
“But yeah they obviously can be beaten. Saracens beat them last year in a final. We’ve got to have a physical intensity to at least match them and a game plan of a way of getting in to them. I’m not planning on them making any mistakes. We go in believing we can win the game.”
A quarter-final last season where just a kick of the ball separated the teams was a long way from where Ulster were two years ago. This time the final in the Aviva Stadium promises even greater points of difference between now and then and what came to be known as the Belfast Rape trial in 2018.
McFarland doesn’t shy away from the damage it did, not just to all the individuals involved, but to Ulster rugby. The freshness rippling through this Ulster team he believes is a coming away from that dark period, where the only constant was that everybody lost something.
“There are a lot of things that have changed in the period, not least circumstance and context,” he explains. “The annus horribilis that was the year before was to do with off-field stuff. Perhaps a little bit of stability coming in . . . as a club we are actually saying we are capable of doing this. We have a plan of how we are going to get there.
“Everybody here who works in this building actually gives a shit . It’s not that they didn’t beforehand because they 100 per cent did. But there was a perception because of the context that happened in that year that people didn’t.
“That perception was wrong. The key thing was everyone had to look in and say I know every inch on the pitch matters to these guys, that they are working non-stop together. That was really, really important because of context out of people’s control. That disappeared for a six months period prior to me coming in. Luckily for me when I came everybody had moved on from that. I was in a position with a fresh start.”
Ulster’s 14-year hiatus stretching back to the 2005-06 season, when they beat Leinster, is like a growing wound. Year by year it hurts and the scar tissue is laid down. The pressure is on Leinster as favourites. With Ulster it arrives in a more existential way but also a way of Ulster proving to themselves, if nobody else, that they are champion grade material. Bring on the pressure, says McFarland.
“I’ve spoken to them about the fact we want the pressure on us,” he says. “Because if you don’t have the pressure on you, I genuinely believe you don’t care enough. If you lose there’s a huge amount of pain afterwards. In sport if the losses don’t hurt then the wins don’t mean as much. How can you possibly enjoy the heights of winning if you don’t know the massive lows of losing? The loss is only low if it means a lot to you.”
A final deserves to be shared, he believes, to be experienced in its fullest. By necessity that won’t be the case in an empty Aviva. Nonetheless, he explains, it doesn’t stop it from being cruel. There’s stuff going on in Ulster heads. McFarland just might bring order.
