Connacht Take Derby Spoils With Thrilling Five-Try Display

Connacht emphatically ended Ulster’s four-match winning run in the United Rugby Championship with a 36-11 bonus point victory at the Aviva Stadium.

Andy Friend’s side brought this derby fixture to IRFU HQ to draw a bigger crowd, and they had the backing of the vast majority of the 9,875 attendance.

Niall Murray’s first ever try for Connacht, coupled with Mack Hansen’s third of the season, had them 17-6 head at half-time.

They landed the knockout blows when John Porch and Academy youngster Diarmuid Kilgallen dived over after 61 and 64 minutes respectively.

Ulster replacement Brad Roberts scored from a lineout maul with 13 minutes remaining, but Connacht – reeling from last week’s Thomond Park disappointment – had the final say through livewire winger Hansen.

It was feisty start with Tom Daly having a penalty reversed for a push on Nathan Doak. It prompted a brief skirmish before the young scrum half mopped up with the three points.

Connacht replied with a slickly-worked try, Paul Boyle offloading for young lock Murray to charged through and score despite Ethan McIlroy’s tackle a few metres short of the line. Jack Carty converted.

Doak, who has earned rave reviews for his performances so far this season, hit back with a 16th-minute penalty, but that proved to be Ulster’s final score of the opening half.

The opportunistic Hansen then gobbled up a floated Billy Burns pass and sped home from 35 metres out. Carty converted and added a penalty for an 11-point cushion.

After Doak missed a penalty, Connacht hooker Dave Heffernan was fortunate to avoid a yellow card for a lifting tackle on returning Ulster captain Iain Henderson.

Instead, Ulster lock Alan O’Connor was sin-binned for aiming a shoulder into the back of Heffernan. Repeated penalties saw Connacht’s Ultan Dillane yellow carded soon after.

The second half started at a frantic pace, Connacht number 8 Boyle was held up before Carty missed a long-range penalty.

As Ulster continued to struggle for their usual rhythm, Connacht whipped the ball wide for winger Porch to get outside Michael Lowry and dive low for the corner.

Carty missed the conversion before adding the extras to replacement Kilgallen’s bonus point score, as the 21-year-old pinched a Burns pass from under Ross Kane’s nose to race clear from halfway.

Roberts replied for the visitors before a late breakaway effort from Hansen, set up by Caolin Blade’s steal, sealed a memorable night in Dublin for Connacht.

Connacht had big contributions from a number of players, including 11-point out-half Carty who missed out on Ireland selection earlier this week.

Australian winger Hansen continues to impress with four tries now. But tireless openside Conor Oliver was the URC player-of-the-match. He was a huge thorn in Ulster’s side at the breakdown as the Connacht back row shone collectively.

Giving his reaction afterwards, Connacht head coach Friend said: “We needed that. It has been an interesting five-week block of games. I said beforehand that we have been learning in those five weeks.

“We were not perfect tonight but to have a scoreline like that against an Ulster team that was undefeated, well that is pleasing.

“Our style is a style that can possibly will wear teams down in the last 15 or 20 minutes. What is pleasing was that at half-time we were frustrated. – we had given away 11 penalties and had given them so many pressure releases because we could not look after the footie.

“And yet we were still 17-6 up. I said to the boys, ‘if we keep the pressure on, the floodgates will open’.

“Conor Oliver was brilliant for us. I said at half-time that if we get 14 more Conor Olivers we will win the game. He was just everywhere. And everything he does, he does it with such intent and desire and effectiveness and energy.

“I thought he was brilliant but a few blokes sort of followed him in that second half. It is great seeing him do that because when we picked him up from Munster, he was still trying to find his form and find out what he was about. Tonight we saw that he has a real belief.”

Ulster boss Dan McFarland admitted: “That’s a gutted dressing room. Any dressing room is after you’ve lost an interpro but to end up with a result like that, we’re very disappointed.

“But we’ve just got to refocus and pick ourselves up. I suppose you could argue that in chunks of those games we showed the ability to turn the ball over in attack that caught us tonight. Connacht were more ruthless in exploiting that

“If we get the performance right we’ll be where we’ll be but that wasn’t good enough to win a game. They were the better team and that hurts. Unfortunately we don’t have a game next week and that’s really frustrating.

“We’ll go away while the internationals are on, we’ve seven players in that (Ireland) squad, and we’ll enjoy watching them while we get our heads down and work on what we need to as we’ve planned to do.”