In the ground I thought that we did really well to go in only 3 point down, were debating on the terrace how many points that wind was worth in a half, and the theory was 10-15, though it did come and go.  Having watched it back now, it was a real mixed bag, Stockdale did a lot very very well, but also lots terribly; his poor passing led to turn overs at least 4 or 5 times over the course of the match.  The set piece started well, but Bell and Herring both went off early and it quickly went downhill thereafter.  I’m also not sure we played the conditions that well, particularly in the second half, there were times when we were a few scores up, that we were trying to play in our own half, why not just kick it deep and make them either try and go the length of the pitch or lose a load of territory kicking it back to us.  

we were very lucky in the end with the forward pass ruling, it doesn’t bode well for the bigger games to come that we struggled so much to put away that ospreys team, even if they are a lot better than they’re broadly given credit for, but a win is a win, so we can look forward to La Rochelle next Friday.  It’ll be interesting to see if ROG sends the same, almost third choice/espoire team here as he did to Newcastle, I could be wrong, but I doubt it.  Hopefully a full strength La Rochelle will do good things for ticket sales and the Ulster coffers, if it does come to pass.

Elsewhere, in the biggest upset of the weekend, the Dragons beat Stade Francais in Paris, I’d been assuming that they would almost certainly be the finalist from the other side of the draw and the clear favourite for the trophy, but them being out opens things up a bit.