Dragons deny Ulster in scrappy stalemate

Ulster 22 Newport-Gwent Dragons 22

Ulster looked to be running away with the game when they went 17-6 up after 30 minutes, but handling errors, wrong decisions and early sparkle waning saw them dramatically lose their way.

Like Ulster’s overall performance, Rory Best had his moments, particularly his exuberance on the ball as he built up game time before a likely start against England next week at Twickenham.

Best looked keen for work, too keen according to the officials in the run-up to half-time when he was adjudged to have used his boot recklessly and found himself yellow-carded.

Ulster, however, didn’t take long to get points on the board with Ian Humphreys banging over a 35-metre penalty with two minutes gone after excellent breakdown work by his skipper Chris Henry.

Things appeared to get even better when Andrew Trimble slipped over on the blindside from a lineout only for referee Peter Allan to pull Ulster up for crossing.

Ulster’s potent start was soon levelled as Dragons man-of-the-match fly-half Jason Tovey, who finished with 17 points, slotting over a wide-angled penalty after Bryan Young slipped into a ruck from the side.

After Humphreys had pushed Ulster ahead again with his second penalty in the 18th minute, a poor reaction at the restart allowed the Dragons to lay siege on the home side’s line with Tovey getting the opportunity to level with his second penalty.

The opening try of the game arrived in the 27th minute courtesy of Paddy Wallace. The move started deep inside the Ulster half when a Dragons move broke down and a mighty hack upfield by Trimble took play up to the opposition line. Dragons looked to have rescued the situation with a deep clearance kick, but the ball was run back by Jamie Smith with Darren Cave making a half-break before giving the ball to Wallace who forced his way through a tackle to score.

Humphreys missed the conversion, but rifled over a long-range penalty in the 30th minute. Humphreys was not finished yet when after a brilliant break by Cave, Dragons centre Rhodri Gomer Davies was yellow carded after preventing a try-scoring opportunity and the Ulster fly-half did the needful from close in.

A Tovey penalty in the 36th minute kept the Dragons in touch and when a bemused Best trooped off to the sin-bin two minutes later, the fly-half banged over his fourth penalty leaving Ulster 17-12 ahead at the break.

After the restart, the Dragons forged ahead with Jones driving over from a line-out maul and Tovey converting.

Cave made amends for earlier band handling with a scintillating break and neat hands by Humphreys put Simon Danielli in at the corner.

However, Tovey was never far from the action and a dropped goal in the 56th minute levelled the game again.

Humphreys had his chance for glory only to see a last-ditch drop goal veer to the right of the uprights.

ULSTER: J Smith; A Trimble, D Cave, P Wallace, S Danielli; I Humphreys, I Boss; B Young, R Best, BJ Botha, D Tuohy, E O’Donoghue, TJ Anderson, D Pollock, C Henry (capt).

Replacements: N Brady for Pollock, 77; D Fitzpatrick for Young, 60; R Caldwell for O’Donoghue, 60; R Diack for Anderson, 60; I Whitten for Smith, 57; T Nagusa for Nagusa, 73.

DRAGONS: M Thomas; W Harries, T Riley, R Gomer Davies, A Brew; J Tovey, W Evans; H Gustafson, S Jones, P Palmer, R Sidoli, L Charteris (capt), D Lydiate, G Thomas, G Webb.

Replacements: T Willis for Jones, 60; B Castle for Palmer, 58; A Jones for Sidoli, 52; J Harris for Webb, 58; M Watkins for Davis, 70.

Referee: Peter Allan (SRU).

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