Home final the big prize for focused Ulster as they return to Glasgow

Glasgow

eventually tore

Ulster

asunder last Saturday. The tries needed to secure a home semi-final demanded it.

Stuart Hogg

and

Finn Russell

delivered the only flashes of brilliance on an otherwise damp occasion.

But Ulster-lite mauled the Warriors pack over their own try line. They led for 54 minutes despite Neil Doak glancing at the Pro 12 table and accepting a Belfast semi-final was probably out of reach.

Glasgow must beat a wholly different Ulster this Friday night back in Scotstoun Stadium. Iain Henderson, the man who will become colossus, will start alongside Paddy Jackson, Ruan Pienaar, Tommy Bowe, Rory Best, Darren Cave and Jared Payne.

In other words, the spine of a squad built to conquer Europe last season or the year before that. It never happened. A raft of injuries, the coaching and foreign player exodus – Johann Muller and John Afoa in particular – made such lofty ambitions seem impossible in 2015.

Yet here they stand; one victory away from a Pro 12 final on home soil, probably against Munster, and a season finale of magnitude comparable to any in immediate history.

All they have to do is beat the league’s most consistent team. Ulster crave such status themselves. Increased recognition of their players by Ireland – Payne, Jackson, Henderson, Chris Henry, even Cave and Craig Gilroy – augurs towards this being the reality.

All they have to do is win tomorrow in Glasgow and the following weekend in their own stadium.

Fortress status

“When the final in Kingspan was announced it was something we dreamed about,” Best admits while in the same breath adds: “But as we get closer and closer to this game, especially leading into those Leinster and Munster games, which were massive, if we had focused beyond those games we would have got beaten. That’s the same now.”

The other tribes came north and Ravenhill’s fortress status was reborn. Leinster tore into them with Ben Te’o breaking through Roger Wilson for an early statement of intent. Sean O’Brien flung an airborne Henderson onto the turf. By God did Henderson respond. Best and others followed as the champions were broken. The Munster pack had greater staying power than a Leinster eight drained by Toulon as a late Keith Earls try appeared to close the deal.

“Ach, there is a lot of belief here,” says Best. “You can see it in how we came back from 10-0 against a very good Leinster team. Munster were 9-0 at one point. We’d prefer not to be coming from behind anymore but we know we can.”

The last-gasp draw with Munster dissolved lingering doubts about Jackson’s Test match credentials; the composure of that cut-out pass for Paul Marshall’s try followed by his disinterest in celebrating the touchline conversion.

“Now we are a step away from a home final we know we can’t think about it,” Best continues. “It could be perceived that it puts pressure on us but I don’t think it does. For us this is semi-final rugby.”

Fallen champions

Their last league title came in 2006. They lost last year’s semi-final in Dublin. The 2013 final in Dublin too. The 2012 European final in Twickenham. Glasgow lost the 2014 final in Dublin, the 2013 and 2012 semi-finals too. All against fallen champions Leinster.

“The good thing for us is we have guys at Ulster who haven’t known tough times. They have only known what it’s like to win. While we haven’t lifted trophies we have won some big games. You hope that little bit of fearlessness will come into it and allow them to perform because ultimately the hardest thing in a semi-final is to not be caught up with nerves or what ifs, as that’s the guy who makes the mistake.”

So last Saturday’s match doesn’t really matter.

“They probably feel they didn’t give a whole lot away either. It’s a semi-final. It’s about the team that makes the fewest mistakes but also goes out there to win it. If you are too cagey and wait for the other team to lose it you run the risk of them going out and taking it from you.”