It was cold at Belmont on Friday evening, when Ulster A entertained Leinster A in a challenge match, but nowhere near as cold as the ruthless team sent up from Dublin 4!

Report and pictures by Bob Given Photography

Leinster dominated the tight and loose aspects of play scoring 9 tries almost at will and rarely letting Ulster A out of their own half. Hugh O’Sullivan, Sean O’Brien and Oisin Dowling all crossed for Leinster in the opening quarter with Tim Corkery converting two.

On a rare attack, after 33 minutes, space was created on the left for Luke Pollock to score in the corner. Bruce Houston kicked a fine conversion from the touchline to leave the score 7 – 19, at that stage.

Normal service was resumed shortly after, when Leinster’s O’Sullivan scored again, for Corkery to convert, to leave the score 7 – 26 at half time.

Minutes after the restart, Ulster were deep in their own half when they stole a line out, on their ’22’ and Marcus Rea showed a remarkable turn of speed to race away for an unconverted try to leave the score at 12 – 26.

Thereafter it became one way traffic with Leinster scoring 5 tries as Cian Kelleher, Scott Penny, Tommy O’Brien (2) and Paddy Patterson crossed, for Corkery to convert, leaving the final score 12 – 61, in Leinster’s favour.

Ulster A: Conor Rankin, Ben Moxham, Stewart Moore, Ben Power, Luke Pollock, Bruce Houston, Lewis Finlay; Callum Reid, Zack McCall, Kyle McCall, Matthew Dalton, Jack Regan, Joe Dunleavy, Marcus Rea, Azur Allison(c). Replacements: Tom Stewart, Adan Hanna, Peter Cooper, Conor McMenamin, Matthew Agnew, Jack Milton, Conor McKee, Gregg Hutley

Leinster A: Cian Kelleher; Adam Byrne, Tommy O’Brien, Conor O’Brien, Andrew Smith, Tim Corkery, Hugh O’Sullivan, Charlie Ward, Bryan Byrne, Jack Aungier, Oisin Dowling, Ryan Baird, Sean O’Brien, Scott Penny (c), Josh Murphy. Replacements: Dan Sheehan, Marcus Hannan, Roman Salanoa, Brian Deeny, Mark Hernan, Paddy Patterson, Alex Soroka, Luis Faria.

Gallery below