The dirty dozen
SOMETIMES Zak Andrew Ward walks into a room in the family home and his father will shake his head in wonder at the thought that 12 years have sped by since that blur of a day when his eldest child was born and Toulouse were beaten.
Andy Ward was there for both life-changing events, but it looked for a long time like he would have to sit out the latter after his wife Wendy went overdue and she was scheduled to be induced on the day of the quarter-final.
What happened has since passed into legend.
Ward played 50 minutes of the game, some of it with a dislocated thumb, before word reached the touchline he had to go. He made the maternity ward with minutes to spare after a mad dash and police escort in RUC chief Ronnie Flanagan’s personal motor. Not an ideal scenario, but it ended well. Wendy gave birth to their 8lb 6oz baby boy and a Ravenhill crowd that had given the Ireland flanker a standing ovation on his departure got to celebrate a famous victory over the French aristocrats half an hour later.
“Some day,” says Ward. “It’s amazing to think my young lad is 12 years of age now. It was a great time for me, obviously, and I’ll never be able to forget that quarter-final against Toulouse for obvious reasons.”
Ulster would go on to beat Stade Francais and Colomiers to claim their one and only European title, but that Toulouse game, that quarter-final, was where it all started and then coach Harry Williams would later crystallise its impact by describing it as Ulster’s best ever result.
Fast forward that dozen years and the province are back in the last eight of Europe’s premier club competition for the first time since which begs the question why ‘99 proved to be the end of a road rather than the beginning.
“I just don’t think Ulster were terribly forward thinking at the time,” Ward explains. “They kind of sat back on their laurels after ‘99 and the fact is that it is always far harder to do something like that a second time than it is a first. You also have to say that we got the rub of the green a few times in ‘99 which you always need in any sport.
“The players were living in a sort of bubble the year after and the branch didn’t utilise the opportunity. They were never as professional as they are now but you have to remember that professionalism was still very much a new thing in Irish rugby. Everyone was still coming to terms with that.
“Look at it this way, at the start of the ‘99 season half that team were still holding down full-time jobs. We had to move around training sessions just to suit everyone so even in that sense alone there has been a hell of a change in mentality and everyday business since then. It’s a different game in so many ways now.”
Other salient points demand noting, too. Ulster’s European success was a comet. It came in a flash and it went just as quickly. Prior to 1999 the province had won just twice in 12 games stretching over the competition’s first three seasons. After ‘99 they managed a solitary victory from their next dozen. In that context, their title-winning season was an aberration, albeit a glorious one.
No-one can say they had it easy in having to beat three French teams, but the English boycott that year will always be asterix beside their success. Playing their last three games on Irish soil did them no harm either because Ulster have always been home birds.
Last year they recorded their first ever win on English soil and they have never claimed a scalp in France. Their best result is a draw with a poor Toulouse almost 10 years ago. For long spells throughout the noughties only their record in Belfast provided any solace.
The province once recorded 14 consecutive victories at Ravenhill but that spell was broken in the 2005/06 campaign when Biarritz raided and left with the four-point booty and for six years on the trot they ushered in a New Year with their European dreams already in tatters.
Things had to change and they did.
Hope has reappeared under coach Brian McLaughlin’s watch this last two years. Last season, Ulster narrowly missed out on a place in the quarter-finals of both the Heineken and Amlin Challenge cups on the last weekend of pool games despite a breakthrough win at The Rec but the seeds of renewal had been sown.
David Humphries, upstairs as director of rugby, took the next step by flying to South Africa and selling the Ulster blueprint to people like Ruan Pienaar, Johann Muller and Pedrie Wannenburg and the old out-half’s summer of recruitment has been an inspired success.
Ulster already possessed a core of established local talent in players such as Stephen Ferris, Andrew Trimble, Ian Humphries and Paddy Wallace and knew that younger talent like Nevin Spence were on the verge of pushing into the XV as well. With the South Africans blending in so seamlessly, Ulster now find themselves challenging on two fronts.
“It is overdue,” says former Ulster player Ryan Constable, whose Cornerflag agency cares for a posse of the province’s players. “Ireland needs four strong provinces and Ulster have put themselves in a position where they can hope to qualify for a Magners League semi-final as well and once you get to that stage every game is a one-off. It’s the same with the Heineken Cup so the key is to put yourself in that position.
“Ulster aren’t at the stage yet where they can put together a consistent stream of top-quality performances against top-quality teams but they are getting there. You can see it all coming together and they will improve by strengthening the depth of the squad which they started to do last year with the signings. They have a potent mix there now between the Irish lads and guys from overseas.”
Constable and Ward are regulars commentators on Ulster games and the consensus from both is that everything from here on in is bonus territory for the province but the game being moved to Milton Keynes has nevertheless added to the feeling that Northampton are beatable even if they have emerged from q three-month domestic slump in time for Sunday’s game.
“It would have been nice if this could have come about three weeks sooner but the fact that it won’t be in Franklins Gardens is a big plus for Ulster,” says Constable. “Not having Stephen Ferris is a huge blow but other injuries are clearing up so you go with that. Out of the other seven teams in the quarter-final draw, Northampton were probably the team Ulster would have picked had they been given the choice and you could say the same for them about Ulster.”
Will they be favourites to win? Yes. Have Ulster a good shot at beating them? Absolutely.”
After 12 years, a good shot is good enough.
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