Ulster completely outclassed a poor Connacht side in a match that was every way as one sided as their match against Portugal.
The front row of Fitzpatrick, Best and Botha thoroughly outclassed their opposition which completely nullified Connacht’s game plan of taking on Ulster up front.
Fitzpatrick in particular buried his starting prop and the replacement in a vintage display which, once the referee got to grips with the intricacy of the front row, practically turned each scrum into a guaranteed penalty.
In fact, a magnificent scrum by Fitzpatrick on the 55th minute resulted in Ulster taking the ball against the head and spinning it out for McCrea to score the all important bonus point try.
Previously to that Ulster had struggled to take advantage of their dominance. In a scrappy first half Ulster went into a two try lead with Ferris and Nagusa capitalising on mistakes from Keatley. Ulster appeared to go asleep for the remainder of the first half and this, coupled with some strange decisions at scrum time by the referee, let Connacht back into the game with a try to bring the half time score to Ulster 20 Connacht 10.
Ulster got their act together in the second half and with Humphreys making good use of the ball the Red Hand men started to completely dominate. Tries by Danielli and McCrea brought up the bonus point and with Ulster totally relaxed further tries were run in by Danielli, Cave and Cunningham.
Humphreys kicked brilliantly from the ground to rack up six conversions and two penalties to take the final score to Ulster 53 Connacht 13.
All in all a good performance from Ulster and they must look forward to their bacck to back games against an indifferent Scarlets side. Two wins over the next fortnight would really get Ulster’s season back on track.
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