Spence keeps Ulster purring

Newport-Gwent Dragons 13 Ulster 20

The Irishmen needed Glasgow Warriors to do them a favour at the RDS in order to secure a home semi-final.

Glasgow were duly thumped 38-3 by Leinster to scupper those hopes, but Ulster at least upheld their end of the deal as they ran in three tries without response by half-time to set themselves on the way to victory.

The first score of the match arrived when Nevin Spence picked the ball up in the middle of the Rodney Parade pitch and dashed to the right, diving in at the corner while Dragons full-back Steffan Jones desperately tried to put him into touch.

Jones then booted the Dragons’ first points with a penalty, but Ulster soon extended their lead.

Full-back Adam D’Arcy almost went over in the corner but when he was tackled by wing Aled Brew, he managed to feed the ball back for Spence to collect and drop over the line for his second.

The Dragons’ problems were aggravated when a long line-out throw was not collected by Gavin Thomas. Ulster back row Pedrie Wannenberg, who had a tremendous game, grabbed the ball and powered over to give Ian Humphreys an easy conversion’ first conversion.

Outside-half Tovey reduced the home side’s arrears to 14 points by the break and after a slow 10 minutes at the start of the second period, they piled on the pressure and scored through Tom Riley.

But that was as close as they were to get.

DRAGONS: S Jones; A Hughes, T Riley, P Leach, A Brew; J Tovey, W. Evans; P Price, L Burns, D Way; L Charteris, A Jones; D Lydiate, T Faletau, G Thomas.

Replacements: M Watkins for Riley 70, M Jones for Tovey 42, J Evans for W Evans 74, H Gustafson for Price 63, T Willis for Burns 70, B Castle for Way 70, A Coombs for A Jones 70, J Bearman for Faletau 63.

ULSTER: A D’Arcy; C Gilroy, D Cave, N Spence, S Danielli; I Humphreys, R Pienaar; T Court, R Best, D Fitzpatrick; J Muller, B Tuohy; P Wannenburg, R Diack, C Henry.

Replacements: P McAllister for Fitzpatrick 61, TJ Anderson for Tuohy 70, T Barker for Diack 66.

Referee: Alan Lewis (IRFU).