Connacht recovered from their heartbreaking result against Leinster to end the calendar year with a bruising 21-12 GUINNESS PRO14 derby win over Ulster at the Sportsground.
19-year-old winger Angus Kernohan’s 32nd-minute try from a Cian Kelleher fumble saw Ulster cut the gap to 14-7 by half-time, responding to converted first-quarter scores from Shane Delahunt and Bundee Aki when Connacht threatened to pull clear.
The sell-out crowd of 8,129 watched Caolin Blade and Jordi Murphy swap second half tries with the latter opening his Ulster account, but Connacht secured their first ever season’s double over Ulster and strung together three successive victories over the northern province for the first time since the mid-1950s.
It was the hosts’ defence which stood out early on as the covering Kelleher denied Henry Speight – in his final appearance of his Ulster loan spell – from a dangerous kick through, and Tom Farrell’s ball-dislodging tackle on Louis Ludik led to Ulster coming under territorial pressure.
The Connacht pack won a maul turnover and a scrum penalty, duly carving out a 12th minute try as all three front rowers carried with hooker Delahunt barging over from close range. Jack Carty converted and also added the extras to Aki’s score, the centre crashing over with Nick Timoney and Marcell Coetzee hanging off him.
Ulster had leaked two scrum penalties in the lead up to that second try, but they forced the issue on the half-hour mark in the greasy conditions. Ian Nagle’s lineout takes set up two maul opportunities, Connacht infringed on both occasions before Kelleher failed to gather Johnny McPhillips’ cross-field kick and Kernohan touched down the loose ball.
John Cooney’s experience of the Galway wind helped him to curl over a cracking conversion, halving the deficit for the interval. The westerners hit back just two minutes after the break, Carty making sure he was first to Kyle Godwin’s blindside chip and slipping a pass away for his half-back partner Blade to score to the left of the posts.
TMO Olly Hodges ruled that it was ‘not clear and obvious’ that Carty was offside from the winger’s kick, and the Athlone man converted for a 21-7 lead before failing with a long-range penalty from a scrum offence. The influence of Rory Best, so vital off the bench in last week’s home win over Munster, was very much missed by Ulster.
Beaten 22-15 at home by the westerners in October, the Ulstermen battled on with an injury to Speight forcing them to bring a second scrum half on in a rejigged back-line. Their resilient play was rewarded in the 67th minute with flanker Murphy’s unconverted maul try in the left corner, just after Connacht replacement Ultan Dillane’s sin-binning for repeated team penalties.
Cooney pulled the difficult conversion wide on the near side, leaving Ulster just out of losing bonus point range, and both coaches looked to their benches during the closing stages with prop Tommy O’Hagan making his debut for the visitors, and Connacht’s newest loan acquisition, versatile back Stephen Fitzgerald, also winning his first cap.
With all-action flanker Colby Fainga’a standing out as man-of-the-match for his line-breaks, Connacht had the better of the remaining minutes, pushing for a late bonus point try which eluded them due to their own handling errors and Ulster’s robust defence.
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