Ulster 27 Connacht 16:ALL THE talk after last night's match was about missing out on the bonus point, but Ulster won and their play-off hopes are just about intact with one regular game – away at the Dragons – to play after they struggled to deal with an obdurate Connacht. The four points takes them into second but Leinster and the Ospreys play today.
There were encouraging performances from Darren Cave and Nevin Spence while Ian Humphreys was central to pulling the strings when Ulster did get front-foot ball. Connacht will be bitterly disappointed at not ending their 51-year wait for a win in Belfast, but they deserved something particularly with the efforts of Ian Keatley and Seán Cronin.
Ulster opened the scoring with well-worked try after six minutes. After a good drive from Jerry Cronin, Humphreys switched the angle of attack and put Adam D’Arcy into a yawning gap. D’Arcy drew the cover and supplied Cave who did likewise to allow Rory Best score under the posts. Humphreys added the extras.
However, they failed to win the restart and from that error Connacht drove up the middle and Ian Keatley snatched a drop goal to reduce Ulster’s lead to four points.
A raft of errors undid Ulster’s efforts to immediately respond. A crooked throw from Best after Ulster went to the corner from a penalty began the process which then manifested itself when Humphreys, with a try screaming to be scored, chipped the ball only to see it charged down by Michael McCarthy and gathered by Fionn Carr.
With a try looking on even from that long range it took a great tackle from Cave to halt the charging Carr and Ulster escaped.
Some effective counter-rucking by the Connacht pack resulted in a penalty which Keatley was unable to goal from long range. Still, the Connacht pack, with McCarthy in great form, kept up the pressure and another turnover from counter-rucking resulted in Carr dancing through tacklers but Troy Nathan’s cross-kick to Eoin Griffin was too optimistic and again Ulster weathered the storm.
Only when Niva Ta’auso lost the ball in contact – his last act before he left injured – did Ulster craft a score out of nothing in a virtual length-of-the-field move. Ruan Pienaar took a quick tap from a penalty in Ulster’s 22 and his break led to Humphreys skinning Cronin just over half way with the pass releasing D’Arcy to run in with Humphreys converting.
But Connacht again ate into Ulster’s lead when Spence was seemingly harshly penalised and Keatley nailed a long range penalty to narrow Ulster’s lead to 14-6.
It continued in much the same vein from the restart with Ulster penalised after Dan Tuohy failed to deal with a Carr high kick but the Connacht’s outhalf’s kick rebounded off the upright. Keatley made amends two minutes later when Chris Henry was adjudged to have held on to the tackler and the number 10 put it between the posts to narrow the lead to five points after 47 minutes.
Humphreys put Ulster eight points clear with a 48th-minute penalty but then the home side again showed a lack of composure. Connacht stole a lineout and Keatley took out two tacklers to offload to Cronin and the Ireland hooker ran in from just outside the 22. Keatley’s conversion brought Connacht to within a point.
Ulster responded with Spence, Cave and Best making inroads in a move that ended with Ulster being held up over the line. They did gather vital points from their attack when Ronan Loughney was penalised for losing his bind and Humphreys kicked his second penalty with 15 minutes left.
The try to give them breathing space came with six minutes remaining with first-phase ball from a scrum being moved left and Humphreys provided Cave with the scoring pass under the sticks, Humphreys converting for 27-16. Try as they did in the dying minutes there was no bonus point.
ULSTER: A DArcy; C Gilroy, D Cave, N Spence, S Danielli; I Humphreys, R Pienaar; P McAllister, R Best (capt), J Cronin, J Muller, D Tuohy, C Henry, W Faloon, P Wannenburg. Replacements: B Young for J Cronin 55 mins, R Diack for W Faloon 68 mins.
CONNACHT: G Duffy; E Griffin, N Taauso, T Nathan, F Carr;, I Keatley; F Murphy; B Wilkinson, S Cronin, J Hagan, M Swift, B Upton, M McCarthy, J OConnor, J Muldoon. Replacements: T O’Halloran for N Ta’auso, R Loughney for B Wilkinson 60 mins, R Ah You for J Hagan, M McComish for J Muldoon both 64 mins, A Flavin for S Cronin 74 mins, A Browne for M McCarthy 78mins.
Referee: JP Doyle (RFU).
