Ulster did what they needed to do on Friday night with a comfortable win against Aironi in the third round of the Heineken Cup. Tries from Stephen Ferris, Adam D’Arcy, Andrew Trimble, Paul Marshall and Patrick Jackson put gloss on the win and secured the necessary bonus point but it was a somewhat laboured performance for most of the game.
Thanks to Mr Heineken there was a little man inside my head relentlessly chipping away at the decaying brain cells just above my right eyebrow for most of Saturday having overindulged for most of the game so this will be a somewhat sketchy report but you can read most of what you need to here over on Scrum.com. The after effects of one too many and a server upgrade, which caused the site to crash on Saturday morning, saw me stumbling for the sofa and a bit of a lie down on Saturday so apologies for no updates yesterday!
Friday night started a little earlier than usual with a visit to the Heineken Drop Inn at The Errigle, where I was lucky to meed up with five gorgeous gals including our VIP prizewinner Kathryn Hanna. It’s a hard life!
After some tasty treats and a few free Heineken lagers we settled down for the Constable and Cunningham road show. Unfortunately the hunky duo toed the Cornerflag line, with a fairly low key assessment of the upcoming fixture. With the girls swooning over the handsome hunks Bryn did get a little carried away, predicting a 30 – 35 point margin in the game, but guest Andy Ward was a little more forthcoming indicating that the absence of Faloon in the back row was a mistake. While Faloon may be no McCaw or Pocock he is the nearest we have to a genuine ball winner and I was pleased to hear that his absence concerns Ward as much as it does myslef.
The Cornerflag team did produce an amusing video to flag the post match guests of Andrew Trimble and Paddy McAllister with Tommy Bowe and Nevin Spence discussing the problems of rooming with the afore mentioned duo. Good to see Tommy still involved with his ex team mates and that Trimble is not as nice as you’d think with the muscular Christian claiming that by day three on any trip things inevitable got so fraught between the (ex) Ulster and Ireland wingers that he ended up giving young Bowe a bit of a thrashing! While thoughts of Alan Bates and Oliver Reid in “Women in Love” sprang to mind worse mental images forced their way into the subconscious after listening to Nevin Spence’s accounts of McAllister’s bath room antics and preferences for “air drying” post shower. I’m relieved that I wont be rooming with that young man any time soon! :shudder:
A quick bus trip to Ravers just in time to meat up with, “Mr Predictions League”, Graeme King to finally give him his award for winning last years competition. With Graeme also out in front this season I’ve put up his picture in the gallery below so all the rest of the competitors now can put a face to this rugby genius. Maybe if you rub the computer screen with his picture up some of his talent might rub off on the rest of you – goodness knows some of you could do with whatever help you can get!
So to the game! It was good to be back on the Prom after missing the last couple of matches and I was very much hoping for a continued improvement from Ulster after their step forward in the match against Scarlets.
Unfortunately it was a return to the predictable with individual class, rather than a concerted team effort, making the difference against a doughty but limited Aironi. The Italian back row did manage to slow the ball down, as predicted, for most of the first half but Ulster managed to score at crucial periods to claim that much needed bonus point.
Stephen Ferris went over for the first, bursting through the defensive line out wide similar to his efforts against Scarlets, to open the scoring on the 16th minute, but Ulster continued to struggle for most of the opening half. With Ulster being somewhat bullied at the breakdown, it wasn’t until Aironi full back Giulio Toniolatti was yellow carded on the 36th minute that Ulster were able to break down the stubborn defence. Ulster took full advantage of the extra man with crucial tries by Adam Darcy and Andrew Trimble either side of the break putting the game to bed, giving Ulster a good 35 minutes to chase that vital fourth score.
The bonus point score came 15 minutes later with the man of the moment Paul Marshall, on for Pienaar, nipping over after a quick tap from a penalty and just over ten minutes later Patrick Jackson, on for Nevin Spence, scored to put a bit of icing on the cake.
Job done, but Airioni grabbed a deserved late try to add to a first half penalty with the conversion bringing the final score to Ulster 31 Aironi 10.
A big improvement is needed by Ulster if they are to repeat the result in Monza next week. More worryingly it was a pretty poor crowd being a couple of thousand light on where it should be for a Heineken Cup game. A worrying trend. It’s a good 9,000 down on the first seven games last year and a staggering 18,000 down on the first seven games of 2005 – 06.
Ulster: (15-9): Adam D’Arcy, Andrew Trimble, Darren Cave, Nevin Spence, Craig Gilroy, Ian Humphreys, Ruan Pienaar. (1-8): Paddy McAllister, Rory Best, John Afoa, Johann Muller (capt), Dan Tuohy, Stephen Ferris, Chris Henry, Pedrie Wannenburg. (16-23): Andi Kyriacou, Tom Court, Adam Macklin, Louis Stevenson, Robbie Diack, Paul Marshall, Patrick Jackson, Stefan Terblanche.
Aironi: (15-9): Toniolatti, Sinoti, Quartaroli, Pizarro, Pratichetti, Tebaldi, Keats. (1-8): Sole, Favaro, Cattina, Bortolami (cap), Del Fava, Romano, Ongaro, Perugini. (16-23): D’Apice, A.De Marchi, Redolfini, Biagi, Ferrarini, Bronzini, Olivier, Pavan.
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2 Responses to “Heineken Cup: Ulster 31 Aironi 10”
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John I eat alittle humble pie in so far as I doubted Ulster to be able to score the trys for the bonus point . Which they did . I would put this down to the fact the forwards took on the Aironi pack and deprived them of a cover defence, That is not to depreciate the fact that Pienaars longer and faster provided IH with additional time and space which thankfully he did not waste with his normal diagonal runs to the touch line..
By the time Marshall came on the Aironi back row was a spent force . The only negative would appear to be the rib injury to Spence and having been there and done that bruised ribs are mighty sore and can take at least 2 weeks to mend.
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Marshalls passing is just as good as pienaars
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