Ulster well beaten by Gloucester

Gloucester 55 Ulster 13

Gloucester are heading towards a place in the knockout stages of the Heineken Cup after a decisive victory over Ulster.

The home side’s forward dominance at the set-piece and their greater finishing power established a convincing victory.

Ulster will kick themselves all the way back to Belfast because they were handily placed just before the interval until Gloucester’s second try opened up a gap they would never relinquish.

Ulster failed to score in the second half as the Kingsholm pack ate up great swathes of ground from driving mauls and turned up the temperature in the scrum on their way to six tries.

Gloucester led 9-3 after 16 minutes – three Henry Paul penalties cancelling out one from David Humphreys – and it was the Ulster outside half who created the first try of the game with a spell-binding piece of skill in the second quarter.

He somehow sent scrum-half Neil Doak on a curving run and although Kevin Maggs was held on the line, Humphreys arrived again to score from close range.

He converted his own try to hand the Irish province a 10-9 lead.

But when it went wrong for Ulster, it did so spectacularly.

Paul had nudged Gloucester ahead with his fourth penalty but when Humphreys’ pass was picked off by Duncan McRae, the Gloucester number 10 raced 70 metres to score the intercept try.

Gloucester then never looked back. Their forward power, with Phil Vickery, Andy Hazell and hooker Chris Fortey to the fore, established a platform that Ulster could not contain.

And just before the break it was another Ulster mistake that handed Gloucester their second try.

Humphreys dropped a low pass from Doak and from the scrum McRae swapped passes with Paul and Jon Goodridge cut a lovely angle to the line.

Gloucester went for the jugular in the second period, turning the screw mercilessly up front and after Paul had dropped a goal following a massive drive, the home side scored their third try after 54 minutes.

Fortey found James Forrester at the tail of a line-out and from the drive, prop Christo Bezuidenhout emerged from the pile with the score.

Paul’s conversion took Gloucester 36-13 ahead and when Humphreys again had a pass picked off by Simpson-Daniel two minutes later, Gloucester celebrated a gift-wrapped bonus point.

It keeps them behind leaders Stade Francais but even when they lost McRae to what looked a serious injury on a stretcher, Gloucester’s dominance did not waver.

And they completed the rout when replacement Adam Balding sent Marcel Garvey away from 20 metres in stoppage time.

In the 89th minute Balding drove over for the sixth try to complete Ulster’s misery.