Ulster Rugby, according to Wikipedia

Ulster Rugby
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Irish Rugby Football Union Ulster Branch (also known as Ulster Rugby) is one of four branches of the IRFU, and is responsible for rugby union in the Irish province of Ulster, six counties of which are in Northern Ireland and three in the Republic of Ireland. The branch is also responsible for the Ulster team, which plays in national and international competitions.

The branch was founded in 1879. The home ground for the province's team is at Ravenhill in Belfast, and has a capacity of 12,000. In 2004 the Ulster Squad re-located their training base to Newforge Country Club in South Belfast but the side retains its close links to Ravenhill, the spiritual home of Ulster rugby. The Ulster team traditionally played solely as an Irish province but in recent years, since rugby union became a professional sport in 1995, the Ulster team now plays as a professional club.

The Ulster squad, which has many very talented professional players enjoyed a successful 2005-2006 season, winning the Celtic League with the final game of the season on 26 May 2006. The captain for 2005-2006 was Simon Best, who also plays for Ireland along with fellow team mates Rory Best, Neil Best, Andrew Trimble and Tommy Bowe.

In the recent Guiness Ulster Rugby awards, Andrew Trimble was awarded 'Player of the Season', Stephen Ferris won 'Young Player of the Year' and Justin Harrsion won 'Personality of the Year'for the 2005-2006 season.

Ulster rugby has developed and progressed drastically over the past decade. Ulster have many youth teams and also the 'Flybe Ulster Academy' which helps to develop talented young rugby players. The teams which Ulster field each season in various competitions are as follows; Ulster U18's, Ulster Schools, Ulster U19's, Ulster U21's, Ulster 'A' and of course the full Ulster XV.


History

The Ulster Branch of the IRFU was founded in 1879. Since then, Ulster has arguably been the most consistently successful of the four Irish provinces (the others are Connacht, Leinster and Munster) having won the Inter-Provincial Championship a record 26 times.

In the amateur Rugby Union era Ulster regularly played international touring sides from the southern hemisphere, their most impressive performance coming in the 1983/4 season when they defeated Andrew Slack's "Grand Slam" Wallabies. This, along with Cardiff's victory at Cardiff Arms Park, was the only loss of any kind for the Australians on a tour which saw them defeat Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England.

In the 1998/99 season Ulster became the first Irish province to win the Heineken Cup. They beat Colomiers in the final at Lansdowne Road 21-6. Coached by Harry Williams only eight of the players in the squad were full-time rugby professionals, the others combining their rugby commitments with a career outside the game.

From 2001-04 the Ulster team was coached by Alan Solomons, a former Assistant Coach of the Springboks and head coach at The Stormers and Western Province in his native South Africa. It was during this time that Ulster rugby fully embraced the professional era.

Alan Solomons coached Ulster to a three year unbeaten home record in the Heineken Cup and in the 2003/04 season Ulster finished second in the Celtic League, only overtaken by Llanelli on the final day of the campaign. Two of Ulster's most impressive achievements in this period were a 33-0 win over English giants Leicester Tigers in the Heineken Cup in January 2004, and winning the inaugural Celtic Cup on the 20th December 2003, beating Edinburgh in a rain-soaked Murrayfield final.

In July 2004, Solomons departed for Northampton Saints and Mark McCall, a former captain of the province and a member of Ulster’s European Cup-winning squad took over as Ulster Rugby head coach with European Cup teammate Allen Clarke as his assistant. The two extended to four years Ulster's unbeaten home record in Europe during the 2004/05 season.

In the 2005-6 season Ulster led the league for most of the season thanks to dominant forward play largely inspired by Australian import Justin Harrison and kiwi scrum-half Isaac Boss and a rapid maturing of a youthful home-grown three-quarter line. However, inconsistent late form from Ulster combined with a late run from Leinster meant that either of those sides could take the title in the final game of the season. With four minutes to go in Ulster's match agains the Ospreys, Leinster's match in Edinburgh finished in a decisive bonus-point victory for the visitors. With Ulster two points behind and the Ospreys dominating territorially, it looked like the cup would go to Dublin. Humphreys, however, kicked a last minute 40 metre drop goal to clinch the game and the league for Ulster.


Provincial honours

* Heineken Cup 98/99
* Magners League 2005/06
* Celtic Cup 2004
* Irish Inter-Provincial Championship

Ulster have won the Inter-provincial Championship the most of all four provinces, 26 times in all.