Brains and brawn give Ulster edge

Montpellier 8 Ulster 25

Naturally, coach Mark Anscombe was ebullient about the performance but didn’t let it show, saying with understatement that it was a pretty good occasion for the boys.

“To come here and beat them, and inflict their first home defeat this year, and by nearly 20 points, that’s not bad, is it,” said Anscombe, whose side only broke their duck on French soil last season after 17 years of trying.

“We had talked about what we wanted to do and we did just that. The guys who started and the bench stuck to our plan. The defence was outstanding, we accumulated points and our kicking game was spot on,” he added.

“A lot of our kicks were contested, and we put them under pressure under those kicks, regained possession. That’s what you want to do. They have a big team and we wanted to turn them around, prevent them from getting some go forward. We didn’t want to give them early targets so they could put us on the back foot.”

To deny the hosts even a losing bonus point sent out the message that this Ulster team just maybe has come of age after two seasons of being nearly men. To be honest, it could have been much more than the 17-point difference at the end, with Ulster butchering one glorious opportunity in the second half and making some other basic errors.

But they did score one sumptuous try in the 10th minute when Andrew Trimble swooped following great inter-play with fellow Ireland winger Tommy Bowe. But it was the sweet right foot of Ruan Pienaar and the game management in particular of young fly-half Paddy Jackson that finally nailed the French side. Pienaar kicked 15 points with the in-form Jackson banging over another penalty with the last kick of the game.

But the half-backs will be the first to acknowledge the magnificent work by the players in front of them.

Ulster were hit with the late withdrawal of human wrecking ball Nick Williams with a leg injury. But they needn’t have worried with Roger Wilson and call-up Robbie Diack playing starring roles.

Ulster were good all over the pitch but it was at the breakdown where the game was really won. Chapeau to the Ulster pack.

Montpellier had threatened to storm back after wing Yoan Audrin had scored early in the second half to make the score 10-8, but it just riled Ulster more than worried them.

Ulster now sit perched on top of Pool 5, two points ahead of Leicester Tigers who they defeated last week at Ravenhill. However, while the two wins out of two is the perfect start, Ulster know that they are only one third of the way towards qualifying, with back-to-back games against Treviso to follow.

Montpellier coach Fabien Galthie, whose team had opened with an away win in Italy, was unhappy at the way his team failed to get to grips with the occasion and the opposition.

“I knew that a team like Ulster was certainly capable of hurting us,” he said.

“We played with a couple of young, inexperienced players who had never played at this level. It was one of those days where, if the smallest thing doesn’t go your way, it can get pretty ugly.

“That was the case today, a lot of things didn’t go our way.

“We are now in a very tough position for qualification. We have to be realistic, it is going to be complicated for us.”

MONTPELLIER: A Floch (B Sicart 34); T Nagusa, A Tuivavake, W Olivier (T Combezou 23), Y Audrin; F Trinh-Duc, J Pelissie (Paillague 64); Y Watremez (N Wariashvili 46), M Ivaldi (T Bianchin 62), M Bustos (N Mas 67), J Hamilton, T Privat (R Tchale-Watchou 46), F Ouedraogo, M Gorgodze (F Quercy 62), K Galletier.

ULSTER: J Payne; A Trimble (M Allen 74), D Cave, L Marshall (S Olding 50), T Bowe; P Jackson, R Pienaar (P Marshall 74); T Court (C Black 70), R Best (R Herring 74), D Fitzpatrick (J Afoa 48), J Muller (L Stevenson 75), D Tuohy, R Diack (I Henderson 53), C Henry, R Wilson.

Referee: Leighton Hodges (WRU).