Ulster keep dreams alive

Ulster 26 Cardiff Blues 17

Ulster kept their dreams of a first Celtic League title alive with a hard-fought victory over Cardiff Blues at Ravenhill.

Playing their first game in three weeks, Mark McCall’s men started slowly and found themselves 9-0 down after 11 minutes.

But as on so many big occasions it was talisman David Humphreys who spurred Ulster into life and he scored 16 of his side’s 26 points.

The visitors took the lead in the opening minutes with a long-range penalty from full-back Nick Macleod after a good drive by his pack and he increased the Blues’ lead with his second successful kick five minutes later.

Macleod was off-target with another penalty opportunity on 10 minutes when Ulster were caught offside at a line-out but he made amends with another long-range effort as the home side were punished for diving in.

Ulster got back into the game with a penalty try. Scrum-half Isaac Boss charged down an attempted clearance out of the visitors’ defence and hacked on but was clinically taken out by Nick Robinson in the 22 and the referee awarded a score and sin-binned the Cardiff outside half with Humphreys adding the easy conversion.

Ulster took the lead with a Humphreys penalty after Cardiff strayed offside on their own 22 and Macleod restored the visitors’ advantage with his fourth kick on 34 minutes to give his side a two-point lead at the interval.

Ulster started the second half brightly but Humphreys was off-target with a penalty but made no mistake a minute later when he nudged the home side in front.

Jamie Robinson silenced the home crowd with a try on 46 minutes. From a line-out Marc Stcherbina cut through the Ulster defence before offloading to his midfield partner, who evaded Andy Maxwell’s tackle to go over but Macleod could not convert.

Humphreys reduced the Cardiff lead to a point with his third penalty and Cardiff prop John Yapp was sin-binned on 55 minutes allowing Humphreys to score with the resulting penalty.

Ulster sealed the victory with their second try on 63 minutes from a five-metre scrum.

Boss went on the open side before flicking a reverse pass to number eight Roger Wilson to crash over from close range with Humphreys converting.