Last-minute Ben Healy try seals one-point win for Munster in Belfast

The northern province were stunned by the late, late score.

CLUTCH: Munster's Jack O'Donoghue and Ben Healy celebrate. Picture: INPHO/Ryan Byrne

Ulster 14 

Munster 15

Ben Healy responded to a week of speculation over a possible switch to Scotland by coming off the bench and to Munster’s rescue with a last-gasp try and a conversion in this tense and tough New Year’s Day interpro.

With Gregor Townsend supposedly interested in bringing the Tipperary-born out-half into the Scottish fold via a switch to one of their regions, this was a particularly timely input for a man featuring for the first time since the game against South Africa ‘A’.

Munster were 14-8 down with the clock tipping into the red but a brilliant break from Jack Crowley – who moved to 12 when Healy came on – set up a dramatic end game to what was a hard-fought but far from perfect encounter.

Healy might have gone over off the back of that initial Crowley run but the visitors had already earned a penalty and duly made a concerted push for the line via a lineout and a series of phases before Healy broke the whitewash.

The conversion was the easy part.

It gave Graham Rowntree’s side a crucial win, just their fifth in eleven URC games and it elevates them to ninth in the table, just one place and one point off Cardiff and all the baubles that come with that eighth place standing.

Even better was the fact that this win was earned without the likes of Tadhg Beirne, Peter O’Mahony and Joey Carbery and against a fully locked and loaded Ulster side playing with a sold-out crowd at their backs.

For Ulster, it is yet another worrying effort and result on the back of a particularly difficult period but both teams played the type of game that left plenty of room for improvement in the crucial weeks and months ahead.

Ulster dominated the opening half-hour, not least in terms of territory. Plenty has been made of Munster’s change of style and which players should play where but scoring points and winning games isn’t easy when you’re playing so much in your own half.

When Munster did get it in that phase they were either box-kicking to clear from their own 22 – no shame in that – or playing a lateral type of game that allowed Ulster to absorb their probes far too easily.

Ulster looked much more dangerous in attack, up until the point they tended to spill the ball, but they had to ask very few questions of the visitors to stack up a 9-0 half-time lead courtesy of three John Cooney penalties.

Crowley might have been a tad unlucky to concede the first from the ‘wrong side’ of the ruck but the other two were less excusable with Roman Salanoa done for an off-the-ball tackle and Jack O’Donoghue for being offside on a kick chase.

Munster finally managed a few punches of their own after Ulster tighthead Marty Moore was stretchered off on the half-hour but their ten minutes spent in the home half, much of that deep in the 22, ultimately came to nothing.

Ulster lost hooker Tom Stewart to a yellow card at the start of it for repeated team infringements but Munster huffed and puffed to no avail afterwards as they spurned the option of an easy three for a more meaningful blow.

The siege ended with Crowley being penalised for a neck roll at one of the endless rucks and the roar that swept around the Kingspan with minutes on the clock to half-time said it all about the potential meaning of that one moment.

Munster’s response was superb. Undaunted by that blank, they restarted with a purpose and a poise that was mostly missing up to that, their wide-wide game peppered with a bit more directness and deception against the 14 men.

Gavin Coombes made the initial dent through the middle and their patience and execution finally paid off some phases later when Paddy Patterson took the ball off one ruck near the touchline and nipped over.

They couldn’t capitalise. Crowley’s difficult conversion came back off a post and their next two attacks were ended by some loose hands with the result that they had to scramble for safety back in their own ‘22’.

Their greater threat was being exemplified by a change of tactic in the lineouts where they stole a couple of home throws but the game remained at 9-5 and keenly poised as it swept past the hour mark, imperfect but entertaining.

Ulster looked like making the decisive thrust after 68 minutes when a series of phases sucked Munster, and not least Paddy Campbell, into the core of the action and Stuart McCloskey’s skip pass out wide found Rob Baloucoune in acres of space.

The winger’s speed made the try a formality but Nathan Doak’s missed conversion, another to be made from a difficult spot, left the door open at 14-5 and Munster had shown enough in attack in the second-half to that point to take encouragement.

Healy brought the deficit back to just six points with a 74th-minute three-pointer to set up the most sensational of finishes and one that stunned the previously raucous Ravenhill crowd.

Ulster: S Moore; R Baloucoune, J Hume, S McCloskey, J Stockdale; B Burns, J Cooney; R Sutherland, T Stewart, M Moore; K Treadwell, I Henderson (capt), G Jones, S Reffell, D Vermeulen.

Replacements: G Milasinovich for Moore (30); J Andrew for Moore (35-40); N Doak for Cooney and S Carter for Treadwell (both 63); J Murphy for Jones and E O’Sullivan fort Sutherland (both 67); J Flannery for Burns (74).

Munster: M Haley; S Daly, A Frisch, M Fekitoa, K Earls; J Crowley, P Patterson; D Kilcoyne, N Scannell, R Salanoa; J Kleyn, K McDonald; J O’Donoghue (capt), A Kendellen, G Coombes.

Replacements: J Wycherley for Kilcoyne (39-40 and 67); B Healy for Fekitoa (53); C Murray for Patterson (56); P Campbell for Earls (64); S Buckley for Scannell and S Archer for Salanoa (both 70).

Referee: A Brace (IRFU).