Ulster hit new heights

IT was meant to be tight, it was meant to be edgy. It was nothing of the sort.

The dreaded rain held off but this was one of those classic Ravenhill evenings in every other sense as the home side claimed four tries and five points whilst all but eliminating the vaunted Tigers from the reckoning in Pool 4.

Eight years ago, Leicester were tamed here when conceding 33 points and scoring none themselves but this trumped that even when the absence of players such as Toby Flood, Manu Tuilagi and Louis Deacon from the travelling XV is factored in.

Leicester crossed the Irish Sea on the back of a rich vein of form but their European pedigree has been fading fast in recent years and they folded like rarely before when push came to shove against an Ulster side for whom it was win or bust.

Next up for Brian McLaughlin’s men is a round six trip to face Clermont Auvergne. Ulster have never won in France but events last night should mean that a losing bonus point would be enough to see them through to the last eight for a second straight season.

Ulster hit a few minor speed bumps in the opening exchanges: Rory Best overdid a lineout throw, Stefan Terblanche let slip a high dropping ball and Ian Humphreys did likewise with a routine pass.

But they were making inroads too. Darren Cave and Terblanche had already found holes in the Tigers line when Andrew Trimble found another minutes later. That launched a superbly executed string of phases that ended an age later with the Irish wing going over in the corner.

Pienaar’s conversion from the right touchline buttressed the advantage and when Ben Youngs meandered offside at a scrum he was penalised to the full when his opposite number found the mark with the second of his penalties.

There were only a dozen minutes gone and Ulster had already secured the sort of margin that would tick off their core aims – to claim at least four points and deny any to the Tigers — but Trimble reopened the door to the visitors.

There seemed little need for alarm when Ben Youngs fired a flat pass out from the back of a scrum after 14 minutes but then the Irish wing darted from the line, missed his interception and left the route clear for Geordan Murphy to touch down.

Billy Twelvetrees added the points to reduce the margin to three and the next 20 or so minutes were dominated by the visitors who seemed perfectly comfortable with a game that became saturated with Garryowens.

Though starved of possession, Ulster were competing brilliantly at the breakdown and extracting a succession of penalties from that seam and when a Leicester player held on in contact after 33 minutes it allowed Pienaar to kick his second penalty.

That was better and 13-7 became 18-7 on the stroke of half-time when Horacio Agulla was dragged back over the Leicester try line and the resulting scrum allowed Pienaar to feed Trimble, whose dancing feet were too quick for Alesana Tuilagi.

Thoughts of a four-try bonus point kept the packed ground warm during the interval and when Twelvetrees smacked a perfectly kickable penalty off a post those dreams were heightened: it was as close as Richard Cockerill’s side would come to re-igniting the contest.

Much of the third quarter was again spent in the no-man’s land of the middle third but three penalties from Pienaar in the 53rd, 56th and 63rd made the game safe before Leicester’s calamities multiplied when Dan Cole was sent to the sin bin.

That laid the platform for a storming end game that delivered the two extra tries needed to claim the fifth point and extend the buffer zone between the Irish side and Clermont, who will be expected to close the gap with another five-point haul against Aironi today.

Craig Gilroy claimed the third touch down in the left corner before replacement scrum-half Paul Marshall capitalised on drooping heads in the opposing ranks by taking a quick tap from a penalty and racing unopposed over the line.

Cue delirium and the mocking strains of ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’.

ULSTER: S Terblanche; A Trimble, D Cave, P Wallace, C Gilroy; I Humphreys, R Pienaar; T Court, R Best, J Afoa, J Muller, D Tuohy, S Ferris, C Henry, P Wannenburg. Replacements: I Whitten for Cave (58); P Marshall for Humphries (66); W Faloon for Wannenburg (71); L Stevenson for Ferris (74); N Brady for Best (77). A D’Arcy for Terblanche (77); C Black for Afoa (77); A Macklin for Court (78).

LEICESTER: G Murphy; H Agulla, M Smith, A Allen, A Tuilagi; B Twelvetrees, B Youngs; M Ayerza, R Hawkins, M Castrogiovanni; S Mafi, G Parling; T Croft, J Salvi, T Waldrom.

Replacements: D Cole for Castogiovanni (56); E Slater for Mafi (57); J Staunton for Smith (60); G Chuter for Hawkins (66); S Harrison for Youngs (78).

Referee: R Poite (France).