KATHRYN Dane and Brittany Hogan, two of Ulster’s most important players, know their team will need a much more complete performance against Leinster on Saturday, August 24, with a place in the Vodafone Women’s Interprovincial Championship final on the line.
Ulster have relied on a final quarter surge in both of their opening matches, scoring two closing tried to pick up two bonus points away to Munster, and repeating that energetic finish to draw 25-all with Connacht in dramatic fashion.
Murray Houston’s charges enter the final round just a point behind second-placed Leinster, so it is all to play for when the sides go head-to-head at Kingspan Stadium (kick-off 4.45pm – live on the TG4 YouTube channel/BBC iPlayer/BBC Sport website). Tickets are available here.
They had to show plenty of resilience and character to bounce back from a 22-5 deficit against Munster, and then erase a 14-point second half deficit at home to Connacht, but Dane and her team-mates do not want to be playing catch-up for the third week running.
“We’re really hoping to push for the final. We’re hoping that we can put in a performance against Leinster this weekend at home,” insisted Ulster’s new captain, speaking to Newstalk’s ‘Off The Ball Breakfast’ show.
“We have to fix our little bits of detail and try and maintain that focus a little bit longer, and a bit earlier in the game, to hold Leinster out.
“They’ve got a lot of threats, and a lot of girls that I would have played with and against over the years. So we know them all too well, we’ll do our homework, but we’ll try and just keep pushing on for Saturday.
“Honestly, anything could happen (with how competitive the Interprovincial Championship has been this season), and hopefully it’s good to watch as well for the fans.”
Saturday afternoon saw Dane play at Kingspan Stadium for the first time since suffering a brain haemorrhage in November 2022. She said it was ‘really, really special’ to be running out again at the home of Ulster Rugby, particularly with her eight-year-old cousin, Oscar, as a mascot.
Having been replaced in the 50th minute, the Ireland scrum half had to watch the tense conclusion from the bench and was happy to come away with another valuable two points, especially given the impact of Ulster’s replacements.
“I think when we went down by that scoreline so early on in the game, we were thinking, ‘gosh, how are we going to pare this back?’, but I think after Lucy Thompson’s try in the corner, it was so dramatic, it was incredible.
“We were really just happy to claw back that draw in the end. I think we were a bit disappointed in our overall performance. We would have liked to have beaten Connacht, but just the way the game went, we were happy to take the draw.
“It’s testament to the younger girls and the impact of our bench that actually came on and finished out that game. We stayed persistent all the way to the end, which is huge considering the scoreline.”
In Ulster’s last three competitive outings under head coach Houston, they have ended an almost 11 year winless streak in Interpro action, averaged 4.33 tries per game, and introduced a number of talented youngsters to this level of rugby.
Dane feels that the emergence of the IRFU’s WNTS (Women’s National Talent Squad) programme in recent years, with Queen’s University one of the Women’s Centre of Excellence hubs, and the establishment of an Ireland Under-20 Women’s pathway have helped to bridge the gap between the U-18 grade and senior rugby.
She pointed to the progress being made by fellow Enniskillen native, Sophie Barrett, with the 20-year-old prop a real standout performer in last month’s Six Nations Women’s Summer Series, on the back of playing with Railway Union in the Energia All-Ireland League, and winning the Celtic Challenge with the Wolfhounds.
“The depth that we have in the (Ulster) squad now is huge, and the youth that is coming through thanks to those performance pathways, we are seeing girls that are able to perform at that top level,” explained Dane.
“There’s Under-16 and Under-18 interprovincial pathways, and Ireland have the NTS programme, and the Under-18 and Under-20 Six Nations squads feeding through from that.
“So, these young players have access to top level coaching and resources now, which is just setting the platform for better senior rugby.
“The likes of Sophie Barrett performing so well in that Six Nations Summer Series. She was the MVP, and just an absolute asset to have in the squad.
“I think that is where we are reaping the rewards of those performance pathways and the S&C and the actual support that these young girls are getting on their way up to senior rugby. It’s really paying off.”
Ireland number 8 Brittany Hogan had a big influence on how Ulster closed out their opening two games. It was her 78th-minute try that sealed Ulster’s brace of bonus points in Cork, and her carrying and lineout work played a crucial role in their two-try finish against Connacht.
Chosen as the Vodafone player-of-the-match from that end-to-end second round encounter, Hogan told BBC Northern Ireland afterwards: “We had it in us (to come back), we completely had it in us. Started off again like last week, just a little bit depleted.
“We came out of the blocks really slow, to be honest. We weren’t too pleased with it, we kind of went a bit too individual in our defence and in our attack, which isn’t the Ulster that you saw in the last 20 (minutes) which was how we could perform.
“I think that we just built into the game, which I think is a little bit unfortunate, but we’re really glad to come away with the draw.”
The 25-year-old back rower admitted that Houston and his fellow coaches had some stern words for them at half-time. There was an obvious frustration that they had not put their best foot forward in the first of three successive matches at Kingspan Stadium this month.
“We got a kick up the backside (at half-time), to be honest with you. We knew that first half performance wasn’t who we were.
“So, at half-time we just kind of said we have to play in the right areas of the field, we have to work a little bit more cohesively in defence, because we let Connacht get the edge far too easily, and that’s where they got their tries.
“We just made sure that we honed in on working together in defence, and make them go through the middle if they have to.”
While pleased to bag those two points to keep Ulster in contention for a final berth, Hogan knows that the review will highlight areas where they let themselves down, and things they will need to tidy up for the visit of the reigning champions.
She reckons they have the quality and squad depth to put it up to Leinster across the 80 minutes, adding: “We knew that last week we performed really well in the last half-an-hour, and we thought that we’d just build from there. We needed to build from there.
“But again, we started off slow and gave ourselves a really hard job to do. Fair play to the girls, we are workhorses, a team of girls who don’t stop, and I’m just really proud that we came out with a draw.
“It just says things of us fully as a 23, like our bench especially, on Thursday night they were beating us up. It just shows that it is a real squad effort.
“They came on and made a class impact, and really, really lifted the game for us. It just shows that we are one cohesive unit, and we just need to make sure that we keep that intensity from the first half next week.”
Captain Kathryn Dane talks to her team after the Vodafone Women’s Inter-provincial Championship Round 2 clash between Ulster and Connacht at Kingspan (Photo: John Dickson/Dickson Digital)
