It’s a case of out the frying pan and into the fire for Ulster as they prepare for their second round Champions cup match this weekend.
After being on the receiving end of 40-point thumping by Top 14 leaders Toulouse on Sunday, Richie Murphy’s men must pick themselves up for Saturday afternoon’s tussle with Bordeaux-Bégles. The side that sits second behind the French and European champions.
Similarly to Toulouse, Bordeaux-Bégles can boast a squad dripping with world class talent.
Prop Jefferson Poirot has 36 French caps to his name while in the second row there’s the experienced Scottish international, Jonny Gray.
But it’s behind the scrum where head coach Yannick Bru has an embarrassment of riches.
Louis Bielle-Biarrey and Damian Penaud provide the gold dust out wide while Maxime Lucu and Matthueu Jailbert orchestrate matters from half-back. And if things need a little freshening up, former Irish international Joey Carbery is a more than suitable understudy.
It’s any wonder that Ulster assistant head coach Dan Soper is saying that they could even be more dangerous than Toulouse.
“This will maybe sound slightly ridiculous given Toulouse have Antoine Dupont but in transition Bordeaux are potentially even more dangerous. Some of their broken-field attack is frighteningly good, so ensuring we don’t give them those opportunities [is important],” warned Soper.
“They’re going to get some in the game, there’s no doubt about it, but how we deal with those is going to be important.
“But, look, they’re another top, top calibre side so limiting their opportunities – with transition a big thing for them, is going to very important.”
“They’re very similar in a lot of ways – a massive forward pack that can suck the life out of you up front with their set-piece and backs who have an incredible ability to turn moments of nothing into something quite spectacular.
“That’s the two main threats they possess.
“You saw on the weekend that Toulouse have some pretty impactful breakdown threats and can get into your attack as they did against us and Bordeaux are no different.
“They have the sort of threats that can stop the flow of your attack.
“Can we deal with what’s coming up front; can we stay in the moment to not allow their backs to have those transitional moments and can we sort our breakdown out that allows us to get our attack into a flow in the game.”
One of the few positives to take from this week is the short turnaround between fixtures. With Saturday’s game coming only six-days after the mauling in Toulouse, Ulster have no time to feel sorry for themselves and move swiftly on to thinking about Toulouse at Ravenhill.
Something that Soper is grateful for.
“It sort of does in a way because we’ll have one decent training session in the week and we need to move on pretty quickly (from last weekend), get that locked away and freshen up for the for the weekend.
“A short turnaround is probably pretty good for that”.
