Ulster’s mix and match Ravens side strolled to a comfortable win against Bedford Blues in this opening fixture in the British and Irish Cup at Ravenhill on Friday night.
There’s a fairly good report here in the Bedfordshire News and another here on Ulster Rugby.
The match kicked off in front of a small crowd which was disappointing given that it was a fine evening and that there won’t be another match at Ravers until 4th December. The marketing of these encounters is something that the new CEO is going to have to look at as a bit of razz-a-mataz (and marketing) for the opening fixture of a new competition wouldn’t have gone amiss.
As it was, however, the whole occasion looked a bit much for Bedford Blues and in the opening encounters Ulster looked to big and strong for the visitors with the entire first quarter being played in the Bedford half. By this stage Ulster were 14 – 0 up, thanks to tries from Seymour and Fitzpatrick, and with O’Connor having an excellent game it was looking like a cricket score was going to be posted.
Bedford did manage to piece together a few moves and eventually broke out to exert some pressure on the Ulster line and they were eventually rewarded with a penalty to take the score to 14 – 3, but Ulster struck back with tries from Cochrane and Kyriacou to notch up the bonus point.
A last minute penalty from O’Connor, who had a good night from the tee, brought the entertaining first half to an end giving Ulster a 29 – 3 lead.
Unfortunately that was it as far as the scoring went. Bedford got to grips with the pace of the game and probably edged the second half on their application and effort. Ulster didn’t find it in themselves to raise their effort and seemed content to sit back and defend their lead, which in all honesty they managed fairly comfortably apart from one close encounter where the Bedford winger failed to ground the ball correctly.
All in all a useful run out for both teams and our English visitors would certainly have got a lot out of it. It was also pleasing to see a good number of visiting supporters who hopefully enjoyed the rest of their stay in Belfast.
You can view pictures of the game from rugbypicture.co.uk here.
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4 Responses to “Ulster Ravens 29 Bedford Blues 3”
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Thanks guys,
Sorry to have missed it. Looking forward to the next one.
tok
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Sorry to have missed it as well, i shall make an effort to attend the next game. will the Rosie have some pie
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The pie situation is being addressed and will be discussed at the next events meeting of the FRU and Rosie entertainments committee! We have asked the URSC to adjudicate at the meeting so we should have a decision by December 2010. (I did by coincidence have a rather nice chicken and ham pie from the Co-Op in Larne the other day!)
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That’s the first time I’ve ever heard anyone claim to have had something nice in Larne….
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