Powerful Leinster cast Ulster aside

A scoreline that takes some reading but is far from misleading. This was a thorough tonking by anyone's standards, Leinster storming the Ravenhill citadel to win by five tries to one and so depart with a maximum haul of five points to lead the table.

In almost every area they were supreme, producing unquestionably the team performance of the Guinness Interprovincials so far. No one played badly, and virtually all of them played well. That Harry Williams substituted six of his own side says everything about Ulster.

Leinster had a host of candidates for man of the match, and that Victor Costello was given the honour for a typically all-action, marauding performance was also testimony to the work of the tight five. As with their defeat to Connacht, Ulster's achilles heel, namely their scrum, was again badly exposed.

And this despite Leinster tighthead Angus McKeen injuring an ankle tendon in the warm-up, thereby compounding the loss of scrum-half David O'Mahony during the day. Henry Hurley came in at loose-head, and Emmet Byrne switched to the tight. Not that you'd have noticed. Leinster shunted, tweaked and twisted the Ulster scrum, sometimes into the air, other times into the ground. The unheralded Byrne is probably contender for Leinster's player of the championship and how Mike Ruddock accommodates the return of Reggie Corrigan will be one of his more pleasant headaches.

Meeting Ulster head-on around the fringes, where Trevor Brennan, Victor Costello and Craig Brownlie hit hard, and in midfield, where Martin Ridge and the impressive Shane Horgan were up and into Ulster's faces all day, Leinster tackled hard to force many spills and turnovers.

Another unheralded player, Pat Holden, put in a huge workload, and with the back-row also taking the ball forward for big yardage, how O'Mahony must have envied the manner Derek Hegarty was able to take the ball on the front foot. The little dynamo gave Leinster a sniping attacking presence which they had lacked.

Horgan, aside from some big hits in midfield, was also immense with ball in hand, playing a key part in three of the tries and often straightening the line with telling effect. Just to rub Ulster's noses in it, their outside three were thoroughly outplayed as well. Denis Hickie and Girvan Dempsey did little wrong and much well, while Kevin Nowlan was another contender for the manof-the-match award, his tackling and fielding augmenting another potent outing, with his brace of tries taking him to the lead of the individual tryscoring table with four.

For the fourth game running Ulster drew first blood, with a 40metre penalty by Mason, but immediately Trevor Brennan won a turnover penalty from the restart when enveloping Gary Longwell.

The Leinster scrum then gradually cranked up the engine and David Humphreys' kicking game, which Ulster had placed much of their tactics around, was lost when he departed with a neck injury.

The hard-working Shane Byrne took the ball up the middle. Brennan put Ulster on the back foot some more and McGowan skip passed to Horgan. He turned static ball into a vital half-break, finding Hickie on the touchline to beat one man, draw another and give Nowlan a try-scoring pass inside.

Ulster stayed in touch through a second Mason penalty but in a devastating spell either side of the break Leinster silenced the big crowd with three tries.

The first was all about pack power. The scrum ground forward for Costello to pick up Holden and Shane Byrne carrying the drive on before Hurley offloaded in the tackle for Holden to burrow over.

Within two minutes of the interval, Horgan sliced through and Nowlan was there with a trademark support run before scoring under the posts.

Leinster weren't done. From a Holden line-out take and drive, Hegarty had time to weigh up his options and negotiate a huge gap between Tony McWhirter and Ward, who were conducting an animated debate as the scrum-half scampered home. Suddenly it was 30-6.

Even then Leinster had the final say. Horgan again sliced through the middle, Shane Byrne was again up in support and crisp passing by the halves bypassed a more numerous Ulster blind side defence for Hickie to take McGowan's flat pass for another fine try.