Due to Willie Faloon's disgraceful behaviour I am setting this thread up. If he cops on we might go back to his thread but I doubt it.

Info blatantly robbed from Willie's post. Good luck to both teams, here's to a cracking HEC final.

Please keep all whining and victimhood to the other thread.

V
Where:

Twickenham
When
Sunday, May 19th. 5pm Local

Teams
TBA

Ulster

Leinster


Referee: Nige

As a neutral I approve of this thread.

Leo is looking sexy in that photo if I do say so myself.

So, team chat. Jackson or iHumph for Ulster?

Dave Kearney or Fergus for Lukey's Leinster wing slot?

Atleast get crests that are the same size.

Pfft, match threads have gone to pot these days.

Yeah, the other one is like something from F365.

Excellent work Appo. I'm getting very excited! Friday can't come quick enough!

Great minds think alike or something. I'll let mine drop seeing as Apposite has done such a good job.

Need to add the year to the title though

Done, this is a friendly open-minded thread.

When WF gets back in from wanking off pigs or whatever he does I am in for a proper B-Specialing

I'd also like to say my Ulster brethren are very welcome and I'd like to congratulate them on their excellent tournament so far.

Jackson to start for Ulster.

McFadden could be playing 12 so Kearney to wing I reckon.

Hoping for a good game.


COME ON ULSTER

JUSTICE 4 WILLIE!

Very sporting of Apposite to put Ulster's name first in the thread title. The ERC aren't so magnanimous and have Leinster first.

This will be fun. What are the chances that Willie and Earl keep posting vitriol at each other in the original thread?

The last thread was an embarassment.

This weekend is the showpiece of European rugby, I can't wait for it!

Ulster have officially been drawn as the home team.

That was my understanding (due to you saying it), but Clash is right, ERC have us first on their site. No big deal, will leave as is.

What's the talk in Ulster about the 10 jersey Earl?

Well done App....... This could be your legacy to the bored.The last one went to over 100 pages.

I reckon it'll be McFadden to start. If there's an issue with either of our semi-crocked centres then McF to centre and baby Kearns to the wing.

Leinster to try and target Paddy Jackson again. In fairness he stood up well to a lot of traffic down his channel in the warm-up to this in Ravenhill and coped pretty well. Still, he's still new to the big HEC games and Leinster will definitely looking upon it as an opportunity.

Trimble will be looking to charge up the 12 channel at D'arcy to see how his face holds up. Ulster to try and put pressure on the scrum but I'm not sure whether they'll get much change from Leinster. If Ica plays RW then I'm not sure Gilroy gets the same space as per the Wundertry in Thomond.

Leinster to be under strict orders re: giving away kickable penalties. If Leinster can restrict Piennar to 9-12 points its difficult to see whether Ulster will be able to get sufficient others to sneak over the line.

My prediction - tight dour game for 60 mins. Tit for tat penalty wise and then Leinster's bench will swing it for them.

Jackson to start, colours have been nailed to the mast and he can tackle.

And for your reference here is the official ERC ruling on the home team

http://www.ercrugby.com/eng/news/18190.php

New thread.

This game real should be called off.

Do we have any injury doubts?
Henry must be back by now and McAllister is the only other player I can think of who's carrying an injury (other than Payne obviously)

BTW Elle, well said on the other thread..... the now unofficial one.

How confident would you be of Jackson starting? Any hints from the camp?

Would be some achievement for a fella that young to start a HEC final at 10

Is Ferris 100%?

If the last thread was the official one but we wanted to split from it because it didn't meet our needs, then surely this is the provisional one?

It sure would and would be of great help to the lad in the future as he eyes up the 10 green shirt.

What would happen if the Irish mgmt wanted to take him to NZ? Would they be reluctant to deny the underage team his services? Which would be better? I'd rather see him kick ass at age grade level than warm the bench (or not even) in NZ.

@ Tallback at the suggestion but I think I'll leave it in the interest of cross-border harmony.

Ferris is rarely if ever at 100%.

We started Jackson in the semi and the games both before and after it, we can't throw iHumph in without a start in a month and bit against a team that will target him, I have faith in Jackson to make the right choices and generally keep things going but more importantly to make his tackles, while iHumph would probably try given the occasion, his fuckwittery ball in hand is also an issue.

IMO if the lad is good enough to start in the final of the most prestigious club/region competition on the planet then he should be with the senior team getting invaluable match time/experience against the best in the world.

Can this be the Continuity Final Thread?

I hope Jackson does well obviously and he will make his tackles but I thought he was a passenger in the semi final. I dont know if Ulster can afford that on Saturday.

I hope he isn't hopping around on one leg like he was in the semi even though it would be good news for us if he were.

Makes sense on Jackson. What happens if he goes off injured after 15 mins? Pienaar to 10 or iHumph on? iHumph I'm guessing.

I think Pienaar really looked after him in that semi which I think was the smart thing to do. He'll be a lot more confident on Sat.

Heard some talk of Henderson putting pressure for a bench spot too.

Cant see it myself. i think they will go with Diack. If it was a choice between Henderson and Faloon though i would go for Iain.

Cant fucking wait!

Earl,

I'd tend to agree with that logic. In these big games you also prefer the stable reliable players who's performance level is unlikely to significantly dip to the "flair" player who might win you the game with a moment of magic but is a likely to lose the game for you. Jackson has looked well able to mix it at this level and the SF with the big Ulster crowd and pressure etc will have brought him on a bit.

Hopefully Pienaar will be too busy looking after himself to have time to worry about his 10

Well that's just it. Hopefully Jackson will take on a bit more responsibility and should be more confident. He definitely has the ability.

His first start in the HEC, in the semifinal, partnered with a play making 9 and 12, he was always going to have some responsibilities taken off his shoulders, to put it in perspective, it was his 7th start for Ulster and his 6th at 10, Sexton when he came in 09 had 25 starts and 15 sub appearances for Leinster.

To describe him as a passenger is harsh considering he made more tackles than some of our forwards.

I meant in attack more so than defense. You cant take a back seat in defense and he certainly didnt. It's in possession I'd be worried about.

I thought the game passed him by a bit, but then Pienaar/Ulster hoofed nearly every ball they got.

Good to see a match thread up, I couldn't see one on the main page!

He got us to the postion where we should have scored another couple of tries but for great defence from Edinburgh and Wannenburgh being stripped by Laidlaw, he did what was required and with Pienaar and Paddy around that isn't a great deal admittedly but he's only a tiddler and needs to grow into this.

Bye.