RUGBY MAGNERS LEAGUE Ulster 12 Glasgow 0FOR A thankfully brief period at the start of the second-half, a particularly foul burst of weather threatened to ruin the match, and even though the howling wind and rain didn't persist, the damage to the game's prospects had been done and it was a hard slog for all as Ulster's first Magners League win in three games saw them rise from ninth to fifth in the table.

It was all about winning ugly and Ulster rolled up their sleeves with big performances up front from skipper Rory Best, and huge efforts both in defence and with ball in hand from the backrow of Chris Henry, Matt McCullough and David Pollock.

First-half tries from Darren Cave and Andrew Trimble – both scores coming off assists from man-of-the-match Simon Danielli who ultimately left the field suffering from the cold – saw Ulster home after a highly unmemorable last 40 minutes, full of mud-spattered endeavour, but without a single score to restore some warmth to the 8,286 brave souls who had turned out to Ravenhill.

Indeed, midway through the second-half, the match was forced to move to uncontested scrums while Justin Fitzpatrick was in the bin, as replacement prop Tom Court was already on the field for the injured Brendon Botha. Bizarrely, Court had briefly been forced off due to arriving with illegal studs, leaving Ulster with no props for several minutes.

All that confusion was probably the highlight of a second-half which saw a weakened Glasgow side finish the stronger but without anything to show for their efforts in the wake of Dan Parks missing two first-half penalty attempts and full back Bernardo Stortoni opting to grubber kick for the Ulster line with men queuing up outside him.

Understandably, Ulster coach Matt Williams was fairly content at the night’s work which saw his charges register their first league win since turning Munster over at Thomond Park in early January. “The plan was that we’d go into the wind and then have some wind to play territory.

“We ran the ball well but lost a bit of control which was understandable in the conditions,” he said.“We just couldn’t kick long. The wind was so bad, we had to kick high.”

Playing into the wind, Ulster opened the scoring after two minutes when, off a scrum, Danielli came on a diagonal run off Ian Humphreys’ pass and the Scotland winger offloaded to Cave who scored close to the posts to give Humphreys a straightforward conversion.

Parks had a chance to narrow Ulster’s lead but his 13th-minute penalty was snatched wide and set the tone for most of the rest of the half as Glasgow’s error count and poor decision-making simply increased throughout the worsening conditions.

Prop Kevin Tkachuk was binned, five minutes before the half hour, for handling on the deck and, while Glasgow were still down to 14 men, Ulster struck again with Danielli putting Trimble into space for the winger to burst through two tackles and run in for a well-taken score.

Humphreys missed the conversion and, with two minutes remaining in the first-half, Parks was wide with what proved to be his final penalty attempt.

Humphreys had one 50-metre penalty attempt, shortly after the resumption, but even with gale assistance it was off target.

Ulster’s next target is Leinster, on the last Sunday of the month at the RDS, and Williams said: “No one’s going to give us a chance so it’s a bit like Munster again when they were red-hot favourites and we beat them.

“It depends on whether we turn up or not . . . I thought we’d beat the Dragons and we’d lose to Munster so it shows you what I know.”

ULSTER: C Schifcofske; A Trimble, D Cave, I Whitten, S Danielli; I Humphreys, I Boss, J Fitzpatrick, R Best (capt), B Botha, R Caldwell, E O'Donoghue, M McCullough, D Pollock, C Henry. Replacements: T Court for B Botha (half-time); K Dawson for M McCullough and C Del Fava for E O'Donoghue both (63 mins); N O'Connor for I Humphreys (65mins); M McCrea for S Danielli (71 mins); C Willis for I Boss (77 mins). Yellow card: J Fitzpatrick, 48-58mins.

GLASGOW: B Stortoni; H O'Hare, J-M-N- Piossek, R Jackson, C Kinloch; D Parks (capt), M McMillan; K Tkachuk, F Thomson, M Low, D Turner, O Palepoi, C Forrester, K Brown, J Beattie. Replacements: E Kalman for C Foster (26-35 mins); T Barker for O Palepoi (57 mins); E Milligan for F Thomson, S Swindall for C Foster and R Gray for D Turner (all 63 mins); E Kalman for M Low (72 mins). Yellow card: K Tkachuk 25-35mins.

Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales).