Ulster Rugby

Ulster Rugby (also known as the Irish Rugby Football Union Ulster Branch) is one of four branches of the IRFU, and is responsible for rugby union in the historic Irish province of Ulster, six counties of which are in Northern Ireland and three in the Republic of Ireland. The branch is also responsible for the Ulster team, which plays in national and international competitions.

The branch was founded in 1879. The home ground for the province's team is at Ravenhill in Belfast, and has a capacity of 12,000. In 2004 the Ulster Squad re-located their training base to Newforge Country Club in South Belfast but the side retains its close links to Ravenhill, the spiritual home of Ulster Rugby.

Contents

1 History

History

The Ulster Branch of the IRFU was founded in 1879. In the time since Ulster has arguably been the most consistently successful of the four Irish Provinces (the others being Connacht, Leinster and Munster) having won the Inter-provincial Championship a record 26 times.

In the amateur Rugby Union era Ulster regularly played international touring sides from the southern hemisphere, their most impressive performance coming in the 1983/4 season when they defeated Andrew Slack's "Grand Slam" Wallabies, the only loss of any kind for the Australians on a tour which saw them defeat Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England.

In the 1998/99 season Ulster became the first, and so far only, Irish province to win the European Cup. They beat Colomiers in the final at Lansdowne Road 21-6. Coached by Harry Williams only eight of the players in the squad were full-time rugby professionals, the others combining their rugby commitments with a career outside the game.

From 2001-04 Ulster Rugby was coached by Alan Solomons, a former Assistant Coach of the Springboks and Head Coach at The Stormers and Western Province in his native South Africa. It was during this time that Ulster Rugby fully embraced the professional era.

Solomons coached Ulster to a three year unbeaten home record in the Heineken Cup and in the 2003/04 season Ulster finished second in the Celtic League being overhauled by Llanelli on the final day of the campaign. Two of Ulster's most impressive achievements in this period were a 33-0 win over English giants Leicester Tigers in the Heineken Cup in January 2004, and winning the inaugural Celtic Cup on the 20th December 2003, beating Edinburgh in a rain-soaked Murrayfield final.

In July 2004, Solomons departed for Northampton and Mark McCall, a former captain of the Province and a member of Ulster�s European Cup winning squad took over as Ulster Rugby Head Coach with European Cup team-mate Allen Clarke as his Assistant. The two extended to four years Ulster's unbeaten home record in Europe during the 2004/05 season.