Ulster bring curtain down on Leinster ambitions

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The loss, allied to last Sunday’s Rugby Champions Cup defeat to Toulon in Marseille, means Leinster will enter the final month of the season with no silverware to chase for the first time in a decade.

Quite the fall from grace for a side that has hoarded trophies as they have in that time, even if the mathematicians could argue they are still alive. The reality is their season isn’t even on life support.

For Ulster, the victory takes them ahead of Munster and Glasgow to the table’s summit, but the southern province and the Scots play today and will look to press their claims against Benetton Treviso and Connacht respectively.

Things really are getting interesting.

Those who do finish in the top two – and fourth-placed Ospreys are not out of the running in that race yet - will enjoy home advantage in the last four. The final itself will be played in Kingspan Stadium regardless of the participants.

Sold-out and redeveloped, the ground provided a charged atmosphere and the two sides responded appropriately in a first quarter which enjoyed the benefit of a break from the long but intermittent rain showers that bedevilled much of the game.

Jimmy Gopperth was at the centre of it all early on, good and bad.

It was the Leinster ten whose deft line break inside the first minute laid the base for the away side’s early dominance, the initial result of which was a penalty he himself kicked for three points in the absence of the dropped Ian Madigan.

Six minutes later and the Kiwi out-half popped a short pass up for outside-centre Ben Te’o to explode through the Ulster defensive line – one drawn up hastily given the move started from one of their own botched line-outs – for the opening try.

Gopperth’s conversion made it 10-0 to the visitors with just eight minutes on the clock in a game they were managing cleverly, playing for territory when the occasion demanded and restricting Ulster to little or no possession.

They wouldn’t score again.

What changed it? Gopperth, initially.

With a dozen minutes played, the soon-to-be Wasps player shanked a cross-field kick that dropped short into a stack of bodies and when Mike Ross was duly pinged at the breakdown it offered Ruan Pienaar his first shot at goal.

The South African kicked it short, but the momentum had swung and it wasn’t long before the impressive Paddy Jackson sprang through a gap in the Leinster line. His hard yards were ultimately rewarded when Iain Henderson’s gorgeous line took him over.

The Ireland lock-cum-flanker has a fine turn of foot, but the gap looked unnaturally large and, sure enough, it turned out that Sean O’Brien had been impeded accidentally by referee John Lacey at the crucial time and in the crucial zone.

The flanker made his feelings clearly known about that.

O’Brien had less to say seven minutes later, by which time Pienaar had levelled with a penalty to add to his conversion, when the TMO looked at the Leinster man and colleague Zane Kirchner lifting Henderson and dropping him to the floor.

It was no tip tackle, nor did it look likely to seriously hurt Henderson, but a yellow card for dangerous play looked like a smart decision even if the Tullow man was booed heartily as he made his way to the sinbin.

By now the heavens had opened and, though Ulster dominated territory and possession through to the break, their sole reward was a second penalty for Pienaar on the brink of the interval having sent another earlier effort wide.

With Ulster 13-10 ahead, the onus to score next was going to lie more and more on Leinster as the second-half wore on but, as it transpired, little or nothing happened to threaten the scoreboard for most of the third quarter.

Craig Gilroy came within a foot in touch of a try before the dam finally burst. Kearney was shown yellow for blatantly killing the ball as Tommy Bowe broke through soon after and Pienaar followed that penalty with another moments later. At 19-10, Leinster were all but done, but Ulster made sure with seven minutes to play when Gilroy, kept out again minutes before when fielding a Pienaar cross kick, finally found the room to dot down for a second, converted try.

ULSTER: L Ludik; T Bowe, J Payne, D Cave, C Gilroy; P Jackson, R Pienaar; C Black, R Best, W Herbst; D Tuohy, F Van der Merwe; I Henderson, C Henry, R Wilson. Replacements: S McCloskey for Cave (52);R Diack for Tuohy (67);R Herring for Best (69); A Warwick for Black and B Ross for Herbst (both 70);

LEINSTER: R Kearney; Z Kirchner, B Te’o, G D’arcy, L Fitzgerald; J Gopperth, I Boss; C Healy, R Strauss, M Ross; D Toner, M McCarthy; D Ryan, S O’Brien, J Heaslip. Replacements: J Murphy for Ryan (52); S Cronin for Strauss and J McGrath for Healy (both 59); T Furlong for Ross and E Reddan for Boss (both 59); I Madigan for D’Arcy (63); B Marshall for McCarthy (68);

Referee: J Lacey (IRFU).