Ulster’s winning form came to an end at the Sportsground last night, as the first inter-provincial of the season ended in a 15 – 15 draw against Connacht.
Brian McLaughlin made four changes to his squad in preparation for the much anticipated inter-provincial against rivals Connacht, and it only took a matter of minutes for the Ulstermen to show the threat they posed, when Andrew Trimble stormed down the left wing after Ryan Caldwell won the lineout. Connacht’s defense was strong though and stopped the winger just short of the try line, before they stole a turnover ball.
Ulster were dealt a massive blow just ten minutes into the game when Stephen Ferris was forced to leave the field with a shoulder injury. His departure meant Chris Henry moved to blindside, Wannenburg moved to number eight and Faloon – Ferris’ replacement – started at openside.
Despite the reshuffling of the pack, Ulster remained focused and slowly crept their way towards Connacht’s 22. Seventeen minutes into the match saw Connacht flanker Ray Ofisa sin binned for a deliberate trip on Trimble, and Paddy Wallace (who started the game as fly-half under Ireland’s World Cup Player Management Programme), slotted over his first penalty of the evening. Connacht 0 – Ulster 3.
Four minutes later, Wannenburg was penalised for being offside and Connacht’s Ian Keatley made no hesitation to level the score. Soon though, Ulster found themselves being the team on the back foot, as winger Paul Emerick was sent to the sin bin for a shoulder charge on Fionn Carr. Again, Keatley was on target and pushed his team into the lead: Connacht 6 – Ulster 3.
The half hour mark proved a dangerous time for Ulster when Connacht powered towards Ulster’s 22. It looked like the home side were destined to score a try, but Ulster’s Paul Marshall raced behind his own try-line to touch down before Connacht had the chance.
Ulster were awarded a penalty which Wallace kicked over to take the score to Connacht 6 – Ulster 6. Keatley and Wallace had another chance to add to their points tally before the half-time whistle, but both attempts were just wide of the posts, leaving the score at 6 points each.
Four minutes into the second half gave Wallace another chance to edge his team slightly in front following a Connacht infringement. Whilst he kicked the penalty with ease, Keatley was close on his heels, and equalised the scores once again on 51minutes, taking the score to Connacht 9 – Ulster 9.
Five minutes later, Ulster began to introduce their subs into the game, with Dan Tuohy replacing Barker and Niall O’Connor coming on for Whitten. Wallace then moved to centre, but when Connacht were penalised for continuously collapsing the scrum, Wallace continued the kicking duties to nudge his team in front. Connacht 9 – Ulster 12.
Just when it looked like Ulster were starting to dominate play, Trimble became the second Ulster player to be awarded a yellow card, for taking out Mike McComish in the air. Connacht, with a one-man advantage, wasted no time and turned to Keatley to equal the scoreboard for the third time that evening.
With only ten minutes of the match remaining, and the possibility of a draw looming, a long distance penalty allowed O’Connor the opportunity to step forward and edge his team ahead. A perfect kick from the young fly-half took the score to Connacht 12 – Ulster 15. Three minutes later gave Ulster the chance to extend their lead, but O’Connor was not as successful on this occasion, leaving the score unchanged.
With the final five minutes of play left, Connacht grabbed their chance to dissolve Ulster’s lead and Keatley slotted over his final penalty of the night, levelling the score to Connacht 15 – Ulster 15. A knock-on by Keatley at the restart, allowed Ulster to make their way towards the oppositions’ 22 but to no avail.
A drop goal attempt from O’Connor was off target and proved to be Ulster’s final chance of the match to score. When Connacht were forced into touch on 80 minutes, the referee blew the whistle and the final score was Connacht 15 – Ulster 15.
Thoughts on the game?
I think last night’s match was a case of one step forward, two steps back to be honest. It wasn’t the most exciting match to watch, and was full of frustrating moments. Yet, strangely, the close score kept me glued to the game.
For the fourth match in a row Ulster’s opposition was reduced to fourteen men, but the men in white were unable to take advantage of the situation, which can be discouraging and also slightly worrying for the players and supporters alike.
A couple of careless, or possibly unlucky decisions (I’ll leave it to you to decide), by some of the Ulster players cost the team dearly, leaving them a man down for 20 minutes of the match. Having said that, whilst it is a far from ideal situation and something they need to work on, Ulster managed to keep their defense strong and didn’t allow themselves to concede too many points.
I guess a draw is better than a loss but in all honesty, I think Ulster were lucky to get away with the draw. Whilst neither Connacht nor Ulster shone through, Connacht did appear to have a slight upper hand, and proved to be the better team on the night.
With this in mind, I think the players and coaches have a lot to work on in preparation for their next match at home to Glasgow.
RugbyRambler
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4 Responses to “Match Review: Connacht 15 Ulster 15”
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Wasn’t a great game for the sofa spectator. Luckily I was distracted for long periods (doing battle with a particularly feisty Pinot Noir). Is Stephen Ferris turning into Darren “sick note” Anderton?
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Not the greatest game of rugby I’ve ever seen, struggling to take anything positive away from it…maybe the only highlight is that we still remain unbeaten! Although on the back of that performance maybe we shouldn’t be.
Scrum time was a disaster – get it sorted! This area of the game is going down hill fast in recent times and the situation needs to be looked at by the authorities…heavy penalties for illegal tactics is surely the only way to get the point across to the front rowers. Another negative was discipline, with 2 Ulster players being binned out of stupidity and on this point our own failure to be ruthless and punish the opposition when they where down to 14. This game was well within the reach of Ulster and we really should have won; later in the season other teams will turn up in Galway and will win against a tired Connacht squad.
However this was not a full strength Ulster side, there are plenty of big names still to come into the the starting XV, good to see Wallace have a decent game at 10 and kicking reasonably well, O’Connor was a bit shaky when he game on, the missed pen and DG attempt werent even close, although in fairness I thought the pack should have carried on for a few more phases to enable him to get closer to the uprights.
All in all not a very memorable game, which is maybe a good thing! We need to step up the performance next week in front of the home crowd as Europe appraoches..hope Ferris recovers well and I’ll be glad to see the leadership of Muller when he comes back into the side.
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I know Muller can’t play every game, but leaving him out of a tricky away game in Galway always looked unwise.
A lack of leadershio was evident and Cap’n Rory isn’t firing on many cylinders at this point. In the end they did well to grind out the draw, as Trimble’s sin-binning killed off the momentum that might have brought a win.
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Although the game was no classic it was fairly brutal as the number of injuries to both teams show this. It was frustrating to be there and watch as both teams cancelled each other out to a certain extent. It is worrying that we have failed to punish the opposition when we have the 1 man advantage….. however we must remember that we had only a 1 man advantage for a brief period as Emerick was sinbinned during their sinbinning. On a positive note our defence was strong and sound during Trimbles 10 mins rest. I know that NOC tried for a drop goal and was a poor effort but i think he hit it from about the 10 metre line …. why ????? the forwards were retaining the ball and there was still 2 or 3 mins left on the clcok surely we should have got a lot closer and he should have been attempting the drop from about their 22.
After 4 games in the league we are still unbeaten……. have won 3 ……… and in my opinion haven’t really played well to our full potential in any of the 4 games.. so still room for improvement and hopefully this will start to happen on fri night gainst the warriors.
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