Ulster seek redemption
WATCHING his new team humiliatingly concede a fourtry European bonus point for the first time in eight years in Belfast wasn’t how Joe Barakat, the new Ulster defence coach, envisaged beginning his Champions Cup stint in Ireland.
‘Every try scored against us I take personally and I should because it’s my job. My job is to make sure defensively that, at the collision zone, we always go forward and nobody budges us,’ he said, reflecting on the chastening events of November 20 when Saracens danced away with a thumping 27-9 win.
‘They were simple tries where our front line was strong but they found weaknesses in behind that front line that we have since made sure we have addressed.’
Tonight will be the litmus test of that remedial work in the intervening three weeks. Revitalised Toulouse are in town looking to inflict a second successive home European defeat on Ulster, which would leave the northerners facing a second consecutive pool stage elimination after a giddy run of four knockout stage qualifications topped off by their run to the 2012 final.
Barakat may be fresh on the scene but he knows well the importance of putting things right and allaying restlessness on the Kingspan terraces.
‘For sure, we can win,’ he insisted despite the latest deluge of injuries placing a cloud over efforts to bounce back. ‘We haven’t talked about anything else other than winning on Friday.
‘It would be uplifting for a number of reasons. The commentators and writers have already written us off in European Cup because we have lost one game — but we have only played one game.
‘We have the absolute utmost respect for Toulouse, the fourtimes European champions. They are a team we have to respect because they play a fantastic brand, but last time they came to Belfast (in 2006) we beat them quite comfortably.
‘Ours is a backyard teams don’t like travelling to. People tell me it’s a fierce environment but I don’t think it’s a fierce environment, I just see fantastic rugby-minded supporters who are really, really smart supporters supporting rugby. But teams don’t like coming to our backyard and we have got to make life painful for them.’
It was late last year when Barakat took a call from Les Kiss, whom he knew from years ago at the Waratahs in Sydney but hadn’t heard from in a while.
The proposition to come to Ulster piqued the 52-year-old’s interest as something different after five years in Japan.
‘He said there might be an opportunity to come over if I was interested. We then put together an understanding of what he wanted me to do and why he wanted me to come here and what his role was. I took it up and decided to come over as long as my wife agreed to come.
‘I spent five years in Japan mostly on my own because my daughters were at university and my wife was working back in Sydney. But because Japan and Australia are nearly in the same time zone [just a two-hour difference], travel wasn’t so bad.
‘We would see one another probably every six or seven weeks, but I said to my wife I’m not doing this job at Ulster unless you come with me because you become a bit of a selfish b*****d when you live on your own.’
Barakat arrived during the summer to not only spell out his defensive philosophy but to also act as eyes and ears for Kiss until his fellow Australian finished up as Ireland defence coach.
‘I have always kept an eye on him,’ he explained, after his career diverged from Kiss following their labour at the Waratahs.
‘We didn’t communicate with one another for a couple of years and then we started again and he was always keeping an eye on what I did.
‘He knew he wasn’t going to be at Ulster for a period of time while the World Cup was on and needed someone to be driving the same way of thinking defensively because his role at Ulster is actually overseeing it. If he had to concentrate just solely on defence he’d be dropping the ball in other areas, so he’s comfortable I’m still delivering that message and that is my baby.
‘The philosophy is the same but we sometimes disagree, which we both enjoy a lot because it creates good discussion.’