Ireland labour for desired result

It wasn't a vintage Irish performance by any means. In truth, it was a laboured win, but yesterday's final World Cup warm-up match was primarily a one-niler, all the more so after the Munster setback. And one-nil was about it.

The chances of it being a whole lot more than that were also undermined by the teeming rain which had descended upon Belfast on Saturday morning and didn't let up throughout yesterday's 80 minutes at Queen's University.

A bar of soap would have seemed adhesive by comparison, and though the pitch held up remarkably well, inevitably the ball was spilled regularly in what was a bit of a damp squib in more ways than one.

On the credit side, Ireland's set-pieces went well. On the debit side, some of Ulster's rucking looked a good deal better than the visitors'. Irish loose ball was thus either turned over and delayed a mite too often for them to develop a consistent rhythm and Warren Gatland's frustration was compounded by the manner his charges scored "a couple of good tries when the ruck ball was quick."

Ulster, as the captain for the day Gary Longwell readily admitted, set out to "frustrate" Ireland, and this they did to augment a first-rate tackling performance, especially around the fringes where Stephen McKinty and Tony McWhirter had big games.

Some of the Irish forwards eventually took exception to some of Ulster's repeated spoiling on the deck or "fringing", which contributed to an atypically hesitant performance by Tom Tierney - his first in the green it has to be said and he did settle after the break.

The excellent and ever-prominent Keith Wood and Peter Clohessy usually led the way in adding an abrasive edge than that was badly missed in Cork, but more indicative of the feistiness in this fragmented affair was the sight of players such as Gary Longwell and Kieron Dawson unloading the odd punch. There were also yellow cards for Mark Blair, Rab Irwin and Clohessy.

The Irish maul also went well, and yielded a couple of close-range tries off line-outs as they out-scored Ulster by four tries to one. Sod's law decreed that while Simon Mason was landing four from four, regardless of the angle, David Humphreys landed a mere two from seven.

The interval entertainment had come by way of a kicking contest from the 22 metre line between two spectators, one of whom came away with a £500 earner. When Humphreys miscued an eminently kickable second-half conversion from 22 metres and looked to the skies, a local punter screeched the line of the day: "Bring Back Rory."

Alas, Mason's general all-round performance, including one missed tackle on Humphreys which led to a try, underlined why the likeable Ulster full back had missed out on the World Cup cut. More worryingly for the Irish management, Gordon D'Arcy looked understandably nervous when brought in late on.

Against that, aside from Wood, a number of forwards had pretty good games; Clohessy, Paddy Johns and Dion O'Cuinneagain amongst them, and perhaps most pleasing of all was Dawson's display as a true openside. After one missed tackle early on, he got down and dirty as well as anybody else, winning some balls on the deck and linking well to ensure some continuity in augmenting a good tackling effort. He's a good player.

Ulster, for their part, were entitled to their broad post-match smiles. As a barometer of their strength in depth, the game finished with 14 Ulster forwards on the pitch, and both skippers were from Ballymena. All their subs, as Harry Williams noted, made contributions, while Mark Edwards gave note of his potential with a very assured outing. "He became a man today. He had a smashing game," said Williams.

As Gatland noted afterwards, Ireland were perhaps guilty of playing too much of the game around the half-way mark; bearing in mind the conditions. Indeed, they enjoyed their best moments when simply attempting to bully Ulster up front close to the line.

Having failed with one line-out maul, they turned down another potential three-pointer by opting for another close-range line-out after Wood had won a key blindside up-and-under. This time Johns gathered and was driven over himself.

More disappointingly, the Irish scrum couldn't make the same inroads subsequently, and but for Brian O'Driscoll's speed and brilliant cover tackle by the corner flag they would have coughed up a pitch-length turnover try when Spencer Bromley intercepted Tierney's blind-side pass to Conor O'Shea.

Ulster retorted with a 40-metre drive up the touchline by either picking and going or Edwards popping the ball to the target runners. In the event, Dawson pilfered Richie Weir's over-cooked throw at the ensuing line-out, and cleverly took out Niall Malone and offloaded to the supporting O'Cuinneagain to put Ulster on the back foot. From the quick recycle, Humphreys danced through in his inimitable style, eluded Mason and O'Shea provided the link for Matt Mostyn to score in the corner.

However, three penalties from Mason's trusty right boot sandwiched a bad miss from Humphreys either side of the interval to bring Ulster right into the game. Ireland upped the forward ante, applying intensive pressure for Humphreys to open his account and then for replacement Eric Miller deftly to put O'Driscoll over with a classy link from about sixth phase inside the Ulster 22 with his first touch.

When D'Arcy was slow to react to Riaz Fredericks's speculative chip ahead, Tyrone Howe showed some nifty footballing skills for an opportunist 40-metre try along the touchline, and Mason's conversion put Ulster to within one penalty of a famous win.

At least Ireland put that idea to bed emphatically, O'Cuinneagain turning down a pop at goal for another attacking line-out and comfortably claiming the try himself after a good drive off Jeremy Davidson's take. Humphreys then even put Rory in his place.