Ruan Pienaar sparkles as Ulster get off to a flyer

Ulster 29, Dragons 8: The Ravenhill crowd had eagerly come to witness All Black Charles Piutau make his competitive debut, but they left lauding their Springbok hero Ruan Pienaar who with typical adroitness sparked Ulster into action as got their Guinness Pro12 season off to a bonus-try winning start.

With posters dotted around the Kingspan ground letting the owners of the ground, the IRFU, see what they thought of the decision to let South African leave the club he loves, the South African was typically professional and classy in everything he did.

He engineered one score for himself, set up winger Robert Lyttle’s first of two tries and generally ran the show. Jacob Stockdale and skipper Rob Herring also scored tries for Ulster.