Brave Ulster win battle but lose war

By Kenny Archer ULSTER won the battle but lost the war at a jam-packed Ravenhill last night.

An injury-time dropped goal by David Humphreys enabled Ulster to take the deserved honours on the night. But despite victory their season has ended.

Requiring a miracle to qualify for the knock-out stages of the Heineken Cup, it never looked like materialising. Needing four tries to take the top spot from Northampton they could only manage one against a side that had little problems stopping Ulster's meagre cutting edge. Instead it will be the Saints who go through to the last eight by virtue of a Ben Cohen try early in the second half. It was scrum-half Neil Doak who made the initial dart to the posts. But although he was grounded, the pack drove in and it was Neil McMillan who emerged over the line for his third try in two games.

Humphreys converted and it was game on. However, the 12,000 crowd was silenced on 26 minutes when Paul Grayson knocked over a penalty during a very rare Northampton visit to the Ulster "22".

But the game was turned on its head six minutes after the restart. Ulster started the same way they finished by crawling over the Saints like a rash.

But Northampton stole Ulster possession and a lose ball was picked up 35 metres out by Ben Cohen to run over for an opportunist try.

Grayson converted to give his side the lead. But Ulster rushed back down to their opponents half again and Humphreys banged over a dropped goal to level the game.

Cohen was then yellow-carded for killing the ball as Ulster turned the screws again Ulster failed to capitalise against the 14 men. And then Ulster paid the penalty for those misses when the Saints again paid a rare visit upfield for Grayson to level with an angled kick. Northampton at one stage were reduced to 13 men with replacement prop Chris Budgen and flanker Mark Soden yellow-carded both with high tackles on Humphreys.

With the Ulster fly-half injured it was left to Doak to level the game again. Then in injury time a still-dazed Humphreys returned to pop over the drop goal to give his side the victory they so merited.

ULSTER: B Cunningham, J Topping, R Constable, S Stewart, S Coulter, D Humphreys, N Doak; R Kempson, M Sexton, S Best, G Longwell, J Davidson, A Ward, capt, N McMillan, T McWhirter. Replacements: J Fitzpatrick for Best (61), R Nelson for McWhirter (69).

NORTHAMPTON: N Beal, J Brooks, P Jorgensen, J Leslie, capt, B Cohen, P Grayson, M Dawson; T Smith, S Thompson, R Morris, S Williams, R Hunter, G Seeley, M Soden, M Connors. Replacements: D Richmond for Thompon (61), C Budgen for Morris (51), K Todd for Seeley (73), J Phillips for Williams (72), J Sleightholme for Brooks (71). Referee: Joel Dume (France).

Heineken Cup Pool 3: Glasgow 8 Llanelli 34

Parker Pen Shield: Castres 123 Dinamo Bucharest 0