Pool Five/London Irish - 29 Ulster - 13:The sense of déjà vu was almost overwhelming. Once again Ulster's hopes of reaching the knockout stages have been severely jeopardised by their inability to play to their potential away from home.
To the acute surprise and disappointment of their gradually disillusioned 3,500 supporters in the Madejski Stadium, few if any of their players reproduced anything like the form they've shown at Ravenhill or for Ireland.
In stark contrast to their record in Belfast, where they have won 15 of their last 16 ties, this was their ninth successive defeat on the road in England. They have yet to win a Cup match in 17 attempts in either England or France, and this 10th defeat in their last 11 away ties leaves them with just five wins out of 32 on their travels - against Ebbw Vale, Treviso (twice), Edinburgh and Cardiff.
There were a few honourable exceptions, Roger Wilson and Paul Wallace for two looking dynamic with ball in hand. Rory Best and Neil Best at least worked hard, while Kieron Dawson spoiled to some effect. But the props and the locks were quiet, Isaac Boss took on too much, David Humphreys and Paul Steinmetz had decidedly mixed bags and Bryn Cunningham had little discernible effect hitting the line.
Assistant coach Allen Clarke admitted Ulster started poorly, their ill-discipline giving London Irish a foothold. But grateful to be only 14-3 down, Clarke was in the vast majority when he said Ulster were "backing themselves" at half-time, having fought back to within a point after the sinbinning of Delon Armitage and Justin Bishop in quick succession.
Opting for the corner, they utilised their numerical advantage with a couple of skip passes for Paul Steinmetz to score.
They singularly failed, however, to press home this advantage in the first six or seven minutes of the second half, when their game management was at its worst. For example, Boss went blind from a promising position 40 metres out where rather than keep the ball in hand, Steinmetz opted to chip ahead and saw his kick drift out on the full.
The poor decision-making was soon repeated when Boss also elected to chip ahead rather than keep the ball in hand.
"Absolutely," agreed Clarke when ruefully reflecting on that post-interval spell when the game got away from Ulster. "In terms of when we had the ball and also what we did with the ball, and maybe our intent wasn't correct at that time. That's something we'll have to look at and learn from, and learn from quickly."
Although they exploited the space out wide with a touchline-to-touchline game in the spell leading up to half-time, for the most part Ulster seemed utterly unprepared for, and befuddled by, London Irish's brilliantly executed blitz defence, in which their line speed increased when they were down a man or two as they gambled daringly. Given their rush defence dates back to even Humphreys's days there, never mind Kieron Dawson or Justin Fitzpatrick, this was all the more surprising.
Defensively Ulster were porous, especially when Shane Geraghty slipped through Humphreys's flimsy tackle for their third try, and nothing better summed up the difference in finishing edge than the last two moves, when Bryn Cunningham and Andrew Trimble failed to execute a two-to-one overlap for a probable bonus point, whereupon Delon Armitage and Sailosi Tagicakibau showed how it should be done to clinch their bonus point.
"Tactically we were poor and in our execution we were poor as well and that cost us," conceded Neil Best. "Good sides score points when the opposition are down players and we didn't do that. They scrambled and defended well.
"But they're a good team, or at any rate they were the better team today. Hopefully it will be different next week."
For that to happen, Best conceded, Ulster will have to eliminate a great many individual mistakes, and he admitted they kicked too much, especially in the first half. They also must improve their discipline at the breakdown.
"That was disappointing," he said. "Away from home, with a French ref, you need to behave yourself, so there were a lot of factors."
A third ex-Irish player to feature against his former club, Justin Fitzpatrick, made a good impact when replacing Bryan Young, and all in all, it was a far more productive day for Irish's Irishmen - if that doesn't sound too Irish - even if there were only two in their starting line-up.
London Irish, as assistant coach Toby Booth admitted afterwards, are simply a better team when Bob Casey is there to lead the pack, not just in the excellence of their lineout but in his work-rate and physicality. You'd wonder, on this evidence, how Matt McCullough can be consistently rated above Casey by Eddie O'Sullivan.
Stars of the show though were Argentinian number eight Leguizamon, the ageless Mike Catt and the Ireland-qualified but seemingly English-bound 20-year-old outhalf Shane Geraghty.
London Irish coach Brian Smith maintained their much improved performance, although it had been flagged by a 40-5 win over Northampton in their previous outing, was largely down to them nearing full strength again. The fear for Ulster had been they would swing from the hip, and so it proved.
"You guys are too hard on us," said the one-time Ireland outhalf. "This time last year we were competing in the European Challenge Cup. We came back well against Llanelli to get a bonus point, showed a lot of spirit, and played well against Toulouse. We told the boys that we worked very hard to get into the Heineken Cup and that whatever else we should enjoy ourselves."
It showed. Irish were the ones who played as if there was no pressure on them, and next Friday in Ravenhill the pressure is on Ulster again. At least they'll have the comforts of home.
SCORING SEQUENCE: 12 mins: Humphreys pen 0-3; 18: Leguizamon try, Geraghty con 7-3; 20: Catt try, Geraghty con 14-3; 34: Humphreys pen 14-6; 40(+5): Steinmetz try, Humphreys con 14-13 (half-time 14-13); 62: Geraghty try and con 21-13; 81: Everitt pen 24-13; 86: Tagicakibau try 29-13.
LONDON IRISH: D Armitage; J Bishop, S Mapusua, M Catt (capt), S Tagicakibau; S Geraghty, P Hodgson; N Hatley, R Russell, T Lea'aetoa; N Kennedy, R Casey; K Roche, S Armitage, J Leguizamon.
Replacements: M Collins for Hatley, D Coetzee for Russell (both 48 mins), P Murphy for Roche (57 mins), F Rautenbach for Lea'aetoa (61 mins), G Tiesi for Catt, B Everitt for Geraghty (both 74 mins), J Hudson for Kennedy (78 mins).
Sinbinned: D Armitage (40 mins), J Bishop (40+3 mins).
ULSTER RUGBY: B Cunningham; T Bowe, P Steinmetz, P Wallace, A Trimble; D Humphreys, I Boss; B Young, R Best, S Best (capt); J Harrison, M McCullough; N Best, K Dawson, R Wilson.
Replacements: T Barker for McCullough (47-57 mins), J Fitzpatrick for Young (61 mins), M Bartholomeusz for Cunningham (65 mins), N McMillan for Dawson (76 mins).
Unused: P Shields, K Campbell, K Maggs.
Referee: Joël Jutge (France).
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