Another excellent outing for Ulster from the well-travelled outhalf.
John Cooney must have thought he was in for one of those days – one of those shit days – after 25 minutes in Belfast today. La Rochelle were ripping into Ulster and could have had three tries. Ulster had 14% territory and 19% possession in the first 20 minutes and were giving away penalty after penalty.
The miracle, at that stage, was that they were only 6-0 down.
After getting tanked by Connacht and Leinster over the festive period, and with several senior stars injured and the coaching staff under pressure, many would have expected Ulster to wilt. They clung on, though, and started to push back. Paul Jordaan was then sent to the sin-bin and Ulster had their ‘in’.
By the time the South African returned to the field, Les Kiss’ men were 10-6 ahead and had their backs up. Cooney had done his best with the scraps he was being fed, beforehand, but he came into his own and Ulster never looked back.
He may have missed his first half conversion efforts but he knocked over the extras, after Nick Timoney’s try, and a penalty to stretch the host’s lead to 20-13. La Rochelle were always going to come back – they have been a revelation for most of this season – but Cooney and Ulster were in the zone at this stage.
Cooney had his mitts on the ball 129 times in the match. Even for a No.9, that is some heavy, heavy involvement. Compare that to La Rochelle’s Alexis Balès [61 possessions] and it shows how just about everything Ulster did went through Cooney. Most of it was on the money too.
The former Leinster and Connacht scrum-half simply tormented the French side in the second half. He put in at least five beautifully weighted kicks over and through the La Rochelle lines, frustrating the hell out of them.
It was the sort of assured, tactically astute performance this player has always been capable of but showed too few times at Leinster to be kept on. Connacht did not want him to go but Cooney packed up and headed north soon after Pat Lam announced his intentions to head to Bristol. Cooney is finally becoming the scrumhalf he always threatened to be and the Ulster fans [and rugby writers] were fulsome in their praise for him.
John Cooney having a great game for @UlsterRugby surely he should be in the @IrishRugby squad #ULSvLAR
— Conor Barron (@Cbarron15) January 13, 2018
John Cooney has to be back up to murray
— Gary Sullivan (@garysullo) January 13, 2018
https://twitter.com/Ciaran_O/status/952185728607367169
https://twitter.com/JosephJCullen/status/952182085875322881
Following the seven-point win, Cooney spoke well about his team’s mentality to Sky Sports. He said:
“We said last week that we want to leave everything out on the field and be sore coming off… The impression is that we can put it in one week and not the next, but we just wanted to leave it all out there.”
That they most definitely did.
The main topic of debate, now, will be whether or not Cooney is doing enough to leapfrog Luke McGrath and Kieran Marmion and deputise for first-choice 9 in the upcoming Six Nations. Murray, who scored two tries against Connacht last weekend, is the banker right now but the Dubliner is putting together a great case to play back-up in Paris next month.
One hopes injuries do not crop up in the coming months but Joe Schmidt currently has a top-class scrum-half at every provincial port right now.
