Ulster Maintain Winning Form Ahead Of Leinster Clash

Ulster put in an improved second half performance to claim a hard-earned 21-7 Guinness PRO14 victory over the Ospreys at Kingspan Stadium tonight.

Cancelling out an early opportunist Keelan Giles try, the Ulstermen levelled through John Cooney for half-time before a John Andrew maul effort and a penalty try settled the issue.

It was a frustrating outcome, though, for Dan McFarland’s men who missed out on a try-scoring bonus point for the second week running. They now trail Leinster by six points at the top of Conference A.

That means a win at home to Leo Cullen’s side next week would tighten things up at the top, but Ulster would require a further slip up from Leinster during the final two rounds.

Giving his reaction afterwards, Ulster head coach McFarland said: “We’re pretty disappointed with the first half, a lot of turnovers and cheap penalties. Fair play to the Ospreys. I thought they came with real intent and why wouldn’t they?

“They’re one of the form teams in the league. We looked as if we weren’t respecting the difficulty of the match as much as we should have been in that first half and they made us pay for that.

“Respect is maybe the wrong word. Maybe (it was more that) getting the expectation of what we were going to require to get on top of the game early on was slightly off.

“And at this level that we’re playing at in professional sport, you don’t have to be off by much for it to become slightly messy. Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a situation that was so bad that we were in dire straits.

“Ultimately at half-time it was 7-7. Half of our game wasn’t great, the other part was pretty good. They scored off a charge-down after two minutes and for the rest didn’t really look like scoring.

“Defence is a big part of the game and ours was excellent. We just didn’t fire on the attack side of things outside of those small snippets when we looked pretty good.”

The visitors were first to strike when Rhys Webb charged down Ian Madigan’s attempted clearing kick in the second minute, nudging it on for the onrushing Giles to ground the ball to the right of the posts.

Following Stephen Myler’s conversion, Ulster found themselves defending for much of the first quarter. Wales scrum half Webb again caused problems, making a threatening break up the short side.

An opportunity came for Ulster when Jacob Stockdale, who got 40 minutes under his belt on his injury return, held firm to keep the ball in play at the touchline. He fed Michael Lowry who launched a chip-and-chase, but an unfortunate bounce foiled the full-back.

Ulster finally got on the scoreboard in the 38th minute with a seven-pointer against the run of play. Tiaan Thomas-Wheeler’s attempted kick was pilfered by Nick Timoney, who tore down the left wing and sent the supporting Cooney over to the left of the posts.

Ulster found their rhythm in the opening minutes of the second period. It looked like Rob Lyttle was in at the left corner but the try was ruled out – the first of the busy winger’s three disallowed scores on the night.

Ulster had the advantage, however, and Madigan duly set up an advanced lineout. Nuggety hooker Andrew came away from the maul to score and Cooney’s conversion had the hosts 14-7 up.

McFarland’s charges began to turn the screw, punching at the Ospreys line for a sustained period. Dan Evans saw yellow for a deliberate knock-on, and with Ulster in a position to score out wide, referee Sean Gallagher awarded them a penalty try.

Lyttle thought he had scored again after Sean Reidy charged down a Webb kick to offload to the winger, but the ball crept forward when Reidy tried to link with the blond-haired speedster.

In a further stroke of misfortune, Lyttle was denied a try for a third time after Ulster went through the hands but TMO Brian MacNeice spotted a forward pass in the build-up.