The URSC Annual General Meeting will be held on Wednesday 21^st April 2010 at Newforge Country Club, 18b Newforge Lane, Belfast, BT9 5NW. Newforge Lane is off the Malone Road, directly opposite the Balmoral Avenue Junction.

The closing date for nomination of candidates for the committee election and for proposals to amend the Club Constitution is Wednesday 31^st March 2010. (For further details on nomination please refer to the extract from the club rules below.)

The Club postal address is URSC, Ravenhill Rugby Grounds, 85 Ravenhill Park, Belfast BT6 0DG.

Nomination forms are available from the Secretary at ulsterrugbysupportersclub@hotmail.com   More ... (309 words, 1 image)

Ulster Ravens Head Coach Neil Doak has named his starting XV, plus replacements, ahead of Ulster Ravens final British and Irish Cup pool stage match, against Aberavon, this Friday 12th March, at Ravenhill, kick off 7.30pm.

A win over Aberavon will secure a semi final place for Ulster Ravens, in the British and Irish Cup.

Ulster Ravens manager Gary Longwell understands how important playing at Ravenhill is and the encouragement that the legendary Ulster supporters contribute on match night:

“We all know the Ulster fans are brilliant, and that playing at Ravenhill always gives Ulster sides’ a great advantage. We need to get the Ulster supporters talking about how good these Ravens games are, how strong the Ulster side is.   More ... (570 words, 1 image)

Ireland have made only one change to the squad that started the England game for this Saturdays match against Wales.

It’s not really much of a surprise that Kidney has decided to ease Ulsterman Andrew Trimble out of the squad to make way for the returning Rob Kearney as the Ireland supremo appears to have little regard for the northern Province these days.

What is surprising is that he also appears to have little regard for any sort of development as, even in this fairly meaningless match, Ireland continue to select the oldest side in international rugby.

Ireland: G Murphy, Bowe, B O’Driscoll, D’Arcy, Earls; Sexton, O’Leary; Healy, R Best, Hayes, O’Callaghan, O’Connell, Ferris, D Wallace, Heaslip. Replacements: Kearney, O’Gara, Buckley, Cullen, Jennings, Cronin, Reddan.   More ... (456 words, 1 image)

Following several inter Canary Island beach tournaments over the last 5 years, Lanzarote have decided that the first one they host will be an open invitation to anyone interested in escaping the cold & wet of the British & Irish isles for a long weekend of sunshine, beer and a spot of beach rugby.

Open to all ages, shapes & sizes but forget the tag belts, this is full-on contact stuff on a smaller pitch, but without the boots, so remember to trim your toenails.

The San Bartolome council are backing the event, so there’ll be decent facilities on hand, and the prize giving event will be followed by a beach side BBQ.   More ... (195 words, 2 images)

You can view Week 26 results here.

This week it’s back to the RBS Six Nations with Internationals on Saturday and Sunday. I’ve also included the three remaining British and Irish Cup fixtures with Ulster Ravens requiring a bonus point win against Aberavon to go through to the knock out stages in style.

One point for each match where you correctly predict the winner, five points if you correctly predict a draw and we’ll give out a bonus point for each group of three matches that you get correct.

Predictions to be in by 6:00pm Friday 12th March.   More ... (229 words, 1 image)

Friday night last and beyond:

Ulster were crop.

The referee was crop.

Rugby is crop.

Alright it’s the UAFC school of constructive rugby criticism for initiates, so let me put some meat on this crusty bone. The guts of this are covered in Dewi’s match report and to avoid any claims of plagiarising I can say hand on heart they are my own miniscule thoughts and reasoning written in my inimitable style. The thought that contract talks and players coming and going struck me as a reason for some of the poor display by Ulster as a team.   More ... (1782 words, 1 image)