Ulster v Ospreys Friday Oct 18 at 19:35

What can’t be seen that is so obvious? There could be many reasons that Toby does not have a new contract. I am not sure I would be confident in claiming which was the real reason.

Why can't we just take him at his word? Not everything is a conspiracy.

As for "shareholders" there is effectively only one in Y11. Ospreys have 5 directors, 2 in the Far East, 1 in Canada, 74 year old Roger Blyth and, since April, Lance Bradley. As a private limited company they don't need a board as public companies would.

Not sure the second para is accurate. A filing at companies house in April 2024 said there was no single shareholder with more than 25%. As for the companies house board I think it is one in the far east one Canada one in Monaco and Bradley and Blyth in UK. On the first para I agree with you taking everybody at their word without conspiracy is certainly equally as plausible as the conspiracy theories. Nobody other than the parties really knows.

Yes excellent result but bear in mind that was a vastly different Bulls team to the one we played with half the team changed from their first choice. But that is the URC. We played a weakened Stormers they played a weakened Bennetton and Bulls.

I agree that Tips needs to keep playing as long as he can continue at his current level.

I also agree that while Toby deserves to leave of his own volition, Jones needs to involved in the recruitment for now and next season.

Toby said post match that he's not involved in recruitment, in fact he's already said that previously, because of his unwillingness in the past to give accurate injury updates we can't accurately assess who was injured and not available for Friday night's game, or who was rested and who made the decision to rest these players. Considering all the other Regions had players either starting or on the bench, when we only had Gareth Thomas playing for us. We really could have done with 2 or 3 of the TW callups for that game.

We shall know tomorrow when Gatland announces his squad but our 6 day turnaround will have had an influence on resting Wales players.

Probably the contract is for away matches.

Clash in kits. Ulster play in white, so we had to play in black, even though we are away.

Fair enough

Reuben probably not fit enough or exhausted on a 6 day cycle. There were some interesting cameos and I disagree about Lew Jones who was better than I have seen him. Two of their tries were from forward passes, Gemine carried well briefly as did Garyn and (surprisingly) Ethan Lewis, Florence looked good, Boshoff and Kasende need time to get up to speed but Dan was keen to find work.

If we can find a class TH and get some front five back in action the backs look good enough to trouble anyone but they won't going backwards behind a beaten pack.

You can add to that Hardy is a far superior scrum half technically and when we get our full strength pack in harness will be a big improvement. Reuben is an excellent open field runner best suited to an impact sub role. His running lines are all well above par. His scrum half basics like kicking scanning both ways at ruck bossing the maul and bringing forwards on to the ball are below par.

It is Owen's fault for moving his head forward????

The comeback starts now...lol

I’ll keep quiet then 😆

It cannot be overstated the lift our pack would have had with Lake, Beard, Ratti and Jac.

I genuinely don’t know where we go from this. Even with Lake, Bear dead back, it’ll make no difference when your relying on Ben Warren. It’s gonna be 50 tonight, and I don’t know if we’ll score a single point again.

I think we would have more grunt in the row with Beard and Ratti which would improve the scrum but you are right about Warren. He may well go on to become a top TH but he is not there yet and we NEED to get someone in.

Well actually, we are one point better off this season than we were last season against the opposition we have faced already.

I would hazard a guess at them being rested rather than injured....

Got the starting team pretty much spot on apart from Sam and Lewis being in the wrong place and I did not even consider Owen Williams who has not featured at all this season.

The run on side is as good as we can do but the bench is pretty thin.

Don't know much about Rhys Thomas but Dan Gemine is a very promising young ball carrier who can score tries. Thomas has done the rounds having been with Coventry on loan. He was players, coaches and fans player of the season/year last term.

Germine played in the Origin games and didn't get much of a chance to do much of anything but he obviously has something about him. I suspect us not going to the bench unless absolutely necessary

Having had a look at the Squad page and based on what your link below says, the squad doesn't look as bad as one might have envisioned but the bench is thin. Going to need plenty to go as deep as possible into the full 80.