IRELAND FLANKER Stephen Ferris and South African prop BJ Botha are back in the Ulster squad to face Stade Français on Saturday. They missed out on last week’s Magners League defeat after picking up injuries on national duty but are back for this must-win match against the French giants in Belfast.
There was initially no place for former Ireland centre and wing Andrew Trimble in coach Brian McLaughlin’s 26-man squad. However, Timoci Nagusa was injured during training yesterday morning and was forced out with Trimble coming back in.
Ulster will remind people they have had big wins at home against Stade before as the two sides have a long history in the competition, having met four times previously in the pool stages. Ominously for the French visitors, Ulster came out on top in three of the meetings.
In 2002-03, Ulster won 19-16 and the following year beat the Parisian side 22-10. Then in 2004-05 Ulster won 18-10 in Belfast. However, last year Stade left as 26-10 winners on the opening weekend of the competition.
Alongside the international players’ return Justin Fitzpatrick and Ulster Academy player Jamie Smith also come in to the Ulster line-up.
Former Ireland and Lions secondrow and Ulster’s assistant coach Jeremy Davidson spent some years as coach of Castres and knows the strengths and possible weaknesses of Ulster’s opponents.
“I think it will be very important for us to give Stade a warm welcome up front in the early exchanges, so we can set our stall out against what is essentially a very strong international team,” said Davidson. “If Stade get it right on the day, not only are they one of the best sides in France, they are one of the best in Europe. They are an exceptionally good team with world-class players in every position. There is no room for errors in play or set-pieces come Saturday.”
Looking at Ulster’s results against them and the fact the French have never won the competition Davidson sees them as brilliant but perhaps seriously flawed.
“I think one of the down sides of French rugby has become a sort of tradition, they don’t travel well, especially overseas,” he said. “Although, with the higher level of professionalism today this is having much less of an impact, as you can see with the Bath game, when Stade just pipped them in the last few moments. The French are very, very passionate about rugby, and French teams historically have based their game around a big pack of forwards dominating and winning the ball, then out in the backs they have the French flair for throwing the ball around.
“Stade Français exemplify this ethos to a tee; they play a real French style of rugby, even though they have been coached by some foreign coaches over the past few years. Their set-piece is very dominant, their scrum, lineout, the maul and then out in the backs they are lucky to have a vast amount of talent to call upon, such as Lionel Beauxis at outhalf, Julien Dupuy at scrumhalf and Mathieu Bastareaud, the French centre. It is not surprising they have a tremendous running game.”
In the back-to-back scheduling,Ulster will travel to Brussels and not Paris next weekend for the away fixture. The Irish side are second in Pool 4 with Stade leading with two wins from two.
ULSTER: Forwards – B Young, T Court, BJ Botha, D Fitzpatrick, J Fitzpatrick, A Kyriacou, N Brady, R Caldwell, E O'Donoghue, D Tuohy, S Ferris, W Faloon, D Pollock, C Henry, TJ Anderson; Backs – J Smith, C Schifcofske, T Naugsa, S Danielli, D Cave, I Whitten, J Shiels, I Humphreys, N O'Connor, I Boss, P Marshall.
