Ulster fight back to deny Saracens

Ulster 19 Saracens 10

Ulster kept their Heineken Cup campaign firmly on track with a win over Saracens that sets Mark McCall’s side up for next week’s return game at Vicarage Road.

It also stretches their unbeaten European record at Ravenhill to 14 matches.

Saracens, who are the last team to have won in Belfast in the Heineken Cup back in 2001, lost control of the game in the last 10 minutes and had two players sin-binned in a frantic finish to a game which they had led up to that point.

David Humphreys finished the night with 14 points for an Ulster side that had struggled to deal with Saracens power up front.

However, when the pressure was on it was the visitors who fell apart in the last 10 minutes.

Ulster will now travel confident of doing the double over the Guinness Premiership team and virtually guaranteeing qualification.

Saracens should have opened the scoring after eight minutes but Glen Jackson put his first penalty attempt left of the posts.

But the visitors, whose pack clearly had the edge in the set pieces, made amends six minutes later though Ulster played a major role in gifting them the opening score.

Rory Best’s long throw, near Ulster’s line, overshot his jumper and was grabbed by Simon Raiwalui who was just stopped short. The ball was quickly recycled and Jackson slipped through some weak Ulster defence to touch down under the posts.

The Saracens’ outside half added the simple two points and the visitors deservedly had the lead.

They could have increased their advantage had Paul Bailey held on to a defence splitting cross kick from Jackson, but Ulster’s fortunate escape brought the first signs of revival for the home side who had mostly been on the back foot for the opening 20 minutes.

Tremendous pressure from the home side saw David Humphreys open their account with a 24th-minute penalty to narrow Saracens’ lead to 7-3. The visitors really should have made it 10-3 two minutes after the half-hour, but Jackson was again wide with a straightforward penalty.

Humphreys then missed a tricky penalty attempt after Ulster again breathed life into their game through broken play, but Saracens’ profligacy was again evident three minutes from the break when Thomas Castaignede spilled after good work from Kevin Sorrell.

Ulster showed their intent from the restart with a huge double tackle by Kevin Maggs and Matt McCullough on Ben Skirving. Indeed, the home side came close to a try 10 minutes later after Roger Wilson’s charge almost saw Andrew Trimble get to the ball before Bailey after a great kick from Steinmetz, but Saracens cleared their lines.

However, Ulster did narrow the gap to 7-6 with a great Humphreys’ 40-metre penalty six minutes before the hour which prompted a frenetic few minutes of play when a Humphreys drop goal attempt was half charged down.

A rare sortie into Ulster’s half, though, saw Saracens launch a great lineout drive from a Hugh Vyvyan take which ended up with a penalty which Jackson finally converted to take the visitors’ lead to 10-6.

From there, Saracens’ game simply imploded. A fairly innocuous kick from Humphreys into Tevita Vaikona’s channel led to a poor pass to Dan Scarborough. Ulster won the ball and a deliberate knock-on from Castaignede under the posts led to a penalty to Ulster and the Frenchman going to the bin.

Humphreys kicked the penalty to put Ulster a point behind again, but then more home pressure saw the visitors reduced to 13 men after substitute Matt Cairns was yellow carded after a tremendous surge from Trimble. Humphreys added the three points and Ulster were ahead.

There was no way back from there and Rory Best’s 79th minute try was brilliantly converted by Humphreys to take his Heineken Cup total to 494 points.