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Video - 'You must defend in twos' - Cheslin Kolbe shreds Ulster with more scintillating footwork
By PA
Cheslin Kolbe gave the credit to his team-mates after his starring role in Toulouse’s Heineken Champions Cup win over Ulster. The South Africa wing’s two tries in a 36-8 rout helped ensure that for only the fourth time this century there will be no Irish team in the semi-finals as Ulster followed Leinster through the exit door.
“Scoring tries is always great, it is the cherry on top of the cake, but I must give credit to my team-mates. Without them, wingers are nothing,” said Kolbe.
“They give us the go-forward on which to capitalise. We stuck to what was expected and the forwards got the gain line for us to create the opportunities.
“Quarter-final games are about opportunities and discipline and they were outstanding. But there are still a lot of things we can improve on going into next week.
“We just have to make sure we don’t get ahead of ourselves and keep working as hard as we can. There are two more games left and hopefully we can make history again and make our supporters, the jersey and ourselves proud.”
Kolbe’s early first try came with Ulster centre James Hulme down injured and then outside half Billy Burns went off after only 16 minutes. That disrupted Ulster and the visitors played with John Cooney on the wing and full back Michael Lowry at 10.
Kolbe scored again just before half-time and Antoine Dupont, Pita Ahki and Thomas Ramos crossed after the interval.
Ulster’s only points came from Cooney’s try and penalty and they were left to lick their wounds after coming up short for a second weekend in a row in a major cup tie. Last weekend they were beaten in the PRO14 final by Leinster.
“Toulouse are a good team and when you make mistakes they are going to punish you. The slightest error and they are through to score,” said Ulster head coach Dan McFarland.
“They showed that and they are a great team. On the reverse side of things, we know we didn’t look like a quarter-final team today.
“For whatever reason we haven’t been playing very well after the break and it looked like that today. We got punished and we deserved it.
“We just aren’t playing very well at the moment – that’s the bottom line.
“I was really pleased with the way the forwards went up front. We talked about their pack and for 60 minutes our scrum was excellent and our set-piece worked well – hats off to the forwards but in other areas of the game we weren’t at the races.”
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I guess the other option would be to start ALB, he's looked good in the 12 so far when he starts and sets up those outside him. But that would mean putting the vice captain on the bench, which is unlikely. Another option would be to drop Reiko to the bench and play Proctor, though he's gone home so that's not going to happen either.
Both of those players just offer more of the soft distribution skills good centres learn from playing their careers there. Unfortunately that's what's lacking with the current combo.
Go to commentsWhatever let's see if this load of waffle is still valid in 2 years time. ABs will rise we have a lot of new talent coming through. The NPC was the highest standard for years. The game is changing to suit the fast pace we like to play. We get to play the Springboks more, including the franchises, which will make us better! Overall I am optimistic. I will add having watched the England game multiple times we made most of the play. England are an awesome physical team, but you can expect the All Blacks to get better and better at executing the chances. It could easily have been 5 tries to one instead of 3 to 1.
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