Ulster stir up the Pool Four pot

Ulster 23 Stade Francais 13:Ulster inflicted a first Heineken Cup defeat of the campaign on Stade Francais in a result that throws qualification from Pool Four potentially wide open with both sides due to meet again next weekend in Brussels.

This was Stade’s fifth loss from six visits to Ravenhill and Ulster’s ability to match the French side in the collision zone and to take their chances when they were presented to them saw them deservedly take the game.

The result puts Ulster and Stade on nine points each..

Tries in either half from Nigel Brady and Simon Danielli, allied to 13 points from the boot of Ian Humphreys and some aggressive defensive work, all of which saw Stade skipper Rodrigo Roncero lose his composure long before the end, sets up next weekend’s clash as potentially crucial to the outcome of the pool.

The opening score, with Ulster playing into the sun, arrived in the wake of a missed penalty from Humphreys which rebounded off the upright and was knocked on by Pierre Rabadan.

From the scrum, the Stade frontrow were penalised and, from under the posts, Humphreys made no mistake with his 12th minute effort.

But Stade hit back with Lionel Beauxis making up for earlier penalty and drop-goal misses by bisecting the posts after 16 minutes after Geoffrey Messina was adjudged to have been blocked.

However, a downfield kick from Hugo Southwell was then punished to the maximum degree when the impressive Humphreys collected and set off up the left wing channel.

He exchanged passes with Danielli and now in open territory inside Stade’s 22 he put hooker Brady clear and he cantered in for a surprisingly easy score.

Humphreys then hit a marvellous conversion and the home side were 10-3 in front.

Beauxis did manage to get some points on the board with his second successful kick in five attempts when Ulster infringed three minutes before the half-hour.

Humphreys then slotted his second penalty when Stade were penalised for handling the ball on the ground.

Ulster showed their intentions right from the start of the second half when a Humphreys-inspired break saw Darren Cave chip over the line only for Messina to kick it dead.

But the pressure remained on Stade as Mathieu Bastareaud was penalised for taking Humphreys out.

Julien Dupuy was binned on 45 minutes and a Humphreys penalty stretched Ulster’s lead to 16-6.

Then with Beauxis having just been substituted, Humphreys spun the ball right and Ulster broke up that wing with a great burst from Stephen Ferris supplying Danielli with a try in the right corner.

Humphreys nailed another great conversion and Ulster were now 23-6 to the good, and was then short with another penalty attempt before Dupuy returned to the action.

Even though Stade emptied their bench they still came in search of a bonus point and replacement winger Julien Arias got over with seven minutes remaining which Noel Oelschig converted.

However, Oelschig’s penalty two minutes before the end failed to get between the posts and Ulster held on for another notable Ravenhill success.

Dupuy will face an anxious wait to see if he faces any disciplinary action after the cameras caught him making contact with Ferris’ face on two occasions late in the game.

Although he refused to identify the Stade player, the Ireland flanker revealed afterwards he had had words with the player concerned.

“He said to me ‘I did not do anything’ and I said ‘we’ll soon see’,” said Ferris.

Ulster coach Brian McLaughlin preferred to focus on the result ahead of the return fixture in Brussels next weekend.

“It wasn’t the perfect performance by any means but by goodness it was a great one,” McLaughlin said. “If you’re going to play Stade here then you’ve got to hassle them and we did that very, very well. Whenever they had the ball we forced the error.

“We didn’t collapse in the last 10 minutes and let them get a bonus point which I think could be crucial for us in the end. We’ve got to believe we’re good enough to win in Brussels. We’ve given ourselves a great opportunity.

“It is important for us to play over there and not to contain. We’ve got to go and we’ve got to play with the same confidence that we played with today,” McLaughlin added.