Ulster fight back bravely to leave it all to play for next week

Ulster 22 Bath 18:THERE WAS never any doubting the market value of this scrambling win ahead of Saturday's return leg at the Recreation Ground, and its dividend was further enhanced after Pool Four was thrown open when leaders Biarritz surprisingly fell at the hands of Aironi, but Ulster outhalf Ian Humphreys cut through the usual post-match rhetoric after what had been a fraught Ravenhill afternoon with Bath.

“You know, I think I finished the game on plus five points; I kicked 17 and gave away 12,” he said with a wry smile.

In many ways his own performance mirrored that of the team; there was no arguing that Ulster produced some decent moments, and none more so than the immense Stephen Ferris, but their efforts were nevertheless book-ended by a raft of unsettling errors and poor decision making – Humphreys being the most visible but far from only culprit – which meant they had to claw their way back from trailing 15-3 after gifting Bath two early tries.

Such lack of precision when they meet Bath again at the Rec for this Saturday’s showdown could easily prove to be Ulster’s undoing which would be unfortunate at a time when Pool Four has been thrown a curve ball after Biarritz’s defeat in Italy, which, though they did manage two losing bonus points, has cut the French club’s lead at the top to only two ahead of Ulster.

“It (Aironi’s win) certainly makes next week’s game in Bath interesting with really everything now to play for and for both teams,” Ulster coach Brian McLaughlin said afterwards and Meehan could only concur by saying that the Pool is now “anyone’s ball game”. As for the performance, McLaughlin naturally chose to put emphasis on the positive. “It’s all credit to the guys the way they fought their way back,” the Ulster coach said.

“We got in at half-time with a fighting chance and in the second half we just got the points that we needed. Yes, there were a lot of mistakes and we turned over ball at vital times, but you can’t fault the guys’ effort and attitude,” McLaughlin said before turning his attention to Saturday’s encounter at Bath where last season Ulster recorded a rare result away from Belfast.

“It’s now a huge game for us and we’ve just got to get the win,” McLaughlin said. “The importance of it (a win on Saturday) for us moving forward in this competition is immense,” he added.

The fact that Ulster did recover the situation last Saturday afternoon was partly down to them being able to mine a rich seam of good fortune, not least Pedrie Wannenburg’s first-half intercept try arriving out of nowhere to narrow Bath’s lead to 15-10 just as it seemed that the visitors were going to survive having prop David Flatman binned for a high hit on Tom Court.

But there was more than just luck to be had in the making of this win even though Bath’s Matt Carraro botched a clear scoring chance just before the hour and Meehan was left somewhat bewildered that his side ended up the wrong end of a 16-5 penalty count against them from French referee Jerome Garces though Flatman was clearly struggling in the scrums against BJ Botha.

The result was sculpted from a hugely industrious effort from Ulster’s pack, with a towering display in the lineout from Johann Muller, alongside Humphreys finding parts of his game again with some accurate place kicking.

Indeed the Ulster outhalf ended up hitting six from seven attempts including a monster effort from halfway to leave Ulster only two points adrift of the lead at the turnaround and from there they pushed on to rescue their European campaign.

An Ulster win had certainly looked unlikely after Jack Cuthbert intercepted a Humphreys pass and ran the length of the field to score, after six minutes, which was then followed on 22 minutes by Lewis Moody making the line after both Humphreys and Adam D’Arcy had failed to gather a Michael Claassens high kick.

But then Wannenburg got his intercept and Humphreys’s huge penalty cut Bath’s lead to 15-13 at the break. Olly Barkley’s 43rd-minute penalty put Bath five clear but it proved to be their final score and three more Humphreys strikes, with Ulster taking the lead for the first time on the hour, and some frantic last-minute defending got Ulster home.

ULSTER: A D'Arcy; A Trimble, N Spence, P Wallace, S Danielli; I Humphreys, R Pienaar; T Court, N Brady, BJ Botha; J Muller (capt), D Tuohy; S Ferris, C Henry, P Wannenburg Replacement: Faloon for Henry (56). Not used: A Kyriacou, P McAllister, B Young, T Barker, W Faloon, P Marshall, I Whitten, D McIlwaine.

BATH: J Cuthbert, M Carraro, M Banahan, O Barkley, T Biggs, S Vesty, M Claassens (capt), D Flatman, L Mears, D Wilson, S Hooper, D Grewcock, A Beattie, L Moody, S Taylor. Replacements: N Abendanon for Biggs (16), D Barnes for Carraro (30), D Carraro for D Barnes (36), D Bell for Wilson (61), I Fernandez Lobbe for Grewcock (61), B Skirving for A Beattie (61), P Dixon for Mears (66), D Barnes for D Flatman (70), M McMillan for M Claassens (75). Yellow card: D Flatman (26).

Referee: J Garces(France).