The Borders - 19 Ulster - 20: Ulster scored their first win in the Celtic League since defeating Connacht on September 18th with victory over The Borders at Netherdale last night to break a dismal run. But Ulster will be dissatisfied with the narrowness of their win over a side which lost two of their key backs and which played 20 minutes with only 14 men after two yellow card offences.
Given the class of the Ulster backs - and there were some deft touches from the centre pairing of Paul Steinmetz and Jonny Bell - the province should have scored more points but a sluggish performance from the pack limited the amount of good ball.
A penalty by Charlie Hore gave Borders the perfect start but Ulster replied with an attack down the left touchline that ended with Steinmetz following up Bryn Cunningham's kick to win the chase for the touchdown, Adam Larkin's conversion opening up a four-point lead.
But when Ulster were caught offside after Borders had encamped in their opponents' 22 metre area outhalf Ally Warnock kicked the simple penalty.
Borders, who earlier had to replace their Scotland tour squad member Gareth Morton, then lost former Ulster lock Mark Blair, yellow carded for illegal interference at the breakdown. The extra man advantage soon told as Ulster skipper Andy Ward broke through the defence to lay on a try for centre Jonny Bell, Larkin again converting for a 14-6 lead.
The gap increased to 14 points with two penalties by Larkin in the final two minutes of play in the first half, the second of these punishing a yellow card offence by Borders' Kelly Brown.
Borders claimed the first points of the second half with a Warnock penalty goal. Larkin had a chance to reply but his 35-metre effort rebounded off the far upright.
Ulster seemed to have atoned when Steinmetz raced in under the posts only for the referee to disallow the score because of a crossing offence. As it was the only try of the second half came from Borders, from a scrum five metres out and quick thinking by replacement scrumhalf Jonny Weston, Warnock's conversion taking the home side frustratingly close to victory.
Meanwhile, Edinburgh's bid to kick-start their campaign was wrecked by the title-chasing Ospreys at Murrayfield. Ospreys won 31-15 with tries coming from Simon Webster and Craig Joiner.
SCORERS: The Borders - Tries Weston; cons Warnock; pens Hore, Warnock (2). Ulster - Tries Steinmetz, Bell; cons Larkin (2); pens Larkin (2).
THE BORDERS: G Morton; S Moffat, C MacRae, C Hore, I Berthinussen; A Warnock, D Moore; P Thomson, R Ford, B Douglas, M Blair, C Stewart, S Gray, W McEntee, K Brown. Replacements: M Parr for Thomson 69 mins, A Rennick for Stewart 66 mins, J Weston for Hore 58 mins, J Pattison for Morton 15 mins.
ULSTER: B Cunningham; A Maxwell, J Bell, P Steinmetz, T Howe; A Larkin, K Campbell; S Best, P Shields, R Moore, R Frost, M McCullough, A Ward, N Best, C Feather. Replacements: G Brown for Ward 74 mins, T Bowe for Howe 60 mins.
Referee: P Fear (WRU)
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