POOL FOUR Edinburgh 17 Ulster 13: ULSTER WERE left surveying the first dent in their Heinken Cup campaign after losing at Murrayfield on Saturday and must now repair the damage in their mid-December home game against Stade Français. The Paris outfit won their second round match against Bath yesterday by 29-27 to put them at the top of Pool Four.
After their impressive win over Bath in the opening round, Ulster arrived in the Scottish capital justifiably confident and for much of the game looked as though they might make it two out of two wins. Individually there were some very encouraging performances but the sum of the whole was less than the constituent parts.
From a coaching perspective there must be concern that Ulster allowed Edinburgh to creep back into the game after the Scots appeared at one stage to be taking giant steps backwards. Head coach Brian McLaughlin admitted: “In the fourth quarter Edinburgh upped the ante and put us under a lot of pressure. We can’t have too many complaints today.
“We did okay in the first half and deserved to come in at half- time with a lead. But in the second half Edinburgh caused us a lot of problems at the breakdown and I have to say we misfired on a couple of occasions in their 22 metre area.
“We knew Edinburgh would be wounded after their defeat to Stade last weekend. In the second half we just couldn’t get our hands on the ball. We chased poorly. But all credit to Edinburgh. They came back with all guns blazing,” suggested McLaughlin.
Ulster appeared in control for the middle period largely because of the intelligent kicking from hand by Ian Humphreys.
“I think Ian Humphreys has been playing very well. He kicked reasonably well today. He’s very confident in what he does and his game management has improved. He was putting us into the right areas of the pitch and the ball was going to where he wanted it to go” stated McLaughlin, adding : “As a team today we didn’t do ourselves justice. We’ve played better rugby than we showed today. We’re capable of playing much better”.
Also impressing in the Ulster backline was inside centre Paddy Wallace. The skipper frequently showed good footwork, most notably in the making of a half break that set up the ruck for his side’s only try.
Winger Timoci Nagusa attached himself to a ruck near the touchline and then, spotting a lack of defenders, sprinted clear from the melee to dot the ball down, leaving Humphreys with a comparatively simple conversion kick.
Nagusa’s score gave Ulster a 7-6 lead, Edinburgh’s points having come from two penalty goals by Phil Godman, replacing late cry-off Chris Paterson as his side’s frontline place kicker.
Before half-time Humphreys added a penalty goal to send his side into the half-time break with a 10-6 advantage. The gap widened three minutes into the second half when a break by Wallace and the follow-up by his forwards ended with a penalty award and three more points for Humphreys.
Edinburgh seemed to be sliding out of the game and would have done so had Humphreys succeeded with another penalty kick. He missed and somehow his failure primed the confidence pump of the Edinburgh side who started to play effective rugby.
Outside centre Nick De Luca was held up on the line after a good intervention by Wallace but Edinburgh were not to be denied, in the lesser form of a penalty goal by Godman.
Edinburgh now needed to score a try and duly did so after an electric break by De Luca, whse pass gave winger Tim Visser enough room to dive over in the corner.
Visser almost added a second try, denied only by his faulty decision to off-load on the try line. What ensued, though, was a time consuming series of five-metre scrums in which Ulster’s frontrow replacements suffered a torrid time. It wound down the clock for Edinburgh and although it did not result in a try the host side sealed their win with a fourth penalty goal from Godman.
EDINBURGH: S Jones; M Robertson, M De Luca, J Houston, T Visser; P Godman, M Blair; K Traynor , G Cross, S Turnbull, S MacLeod, A MacDonald, R Grant, A Hogg. Replacements: C Hamilton for Turnbull (41 mins); B Cairn for Robertson, A Jacobsen for Traynor, S Newlands for Hogg (all 57 mins); G Laidlaw for Blair (67 mins)
ULSTER: C Schifcofske; T Nagusa, D Cave, P Wallace, A Trimble; I Humphreys, I Boss; T Court , A Kyriacou, B Botha, E O'Donaghue, R Caldwell, S Ferris, W Faloon, R Diack. Replacements: D Tuohy for Caldwell (48 mins); S Danielli for Nagusa, B Young for Court (both 61 mins); N Brady for Kyriacou, D Fitzpatrick for Botha (both 67 mins); P Marshall for Boss (78 mins).
Referee: D Pearson(RFU)
