Ulster Reel Off Six Tries To Complete Italian Job

A strong second half from Ulster saw them claim a 36-3 bonus point victory over Zebre in the United Rugby Championship in Parma.

Ethan McIlroy crossed the whitewash twice, the second try coming on the stroke of half-time as Ulster moved into a 10-3 lead against Michael Bradley’s tricky side.

Zebre landed some big tackles in midfield, halting the visitors’ momentum, but the province pulled clear with second half tries from Will Addison, James Hume and the in-form Nick Timoney (2).

Teenage scrum half Nathan Doak has some impressive moments, earning himself the player-of-the-match medal, while Academy winger Ben Moxham came on during the final quarter.

The opening exchanges were tightly contested at Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi, as the aerial kicking battle thoroughly tested the back-field coverage of both teams.

Zebre had a spell of territory, but Ulster did well with their maul defence for Rob Herring – on the cusp of his 200th cap – to get out of immediate danger, five metres out.

Ulster’s first chance came in the 14th minute with Doak, making his first competitive start, going agonisingly close to the Zebre try-line.

The hosts’ defensive efforts paid off with a penalty which Italian international Carlo Canna kicked to touch to relieve the pressure.

Another opportunity came for the visitors when Tom O’Toole tried to muscle his way over, only for the TMO review to show that the recent Ireland cap was just short of scoring.

The Ulstermen finally broke the deadlock on 20 minutes when they opted to go wide with Billy Burns firing the ball out to McIlroy who bundled his way over in the corner.

Zebre narrowed the deficit to two points past the half-hour mark, Antonio Rizzi, who had come on to replace Canna, landing a penalty for the hosts.

Ulster struck again as the interval neared, again opting to go through the hands and Hume made a lovely step and delayed pass to McIlroy who ran through to put Ulster 10-3 up.

It did no take long for another score to come from Ulster, early in the second half. They benefited from poor Zebre discipline and Craig Gilroy did really well to collect the loose ball and pop it out to Addison for try number three.

After Billy Burns made no mistake with the extras, Zebre’s discipline faltered again and prop Ion Neculai was sent to the sin bin after repeated infringements.

The floodgates started to open and once more Gilroy came to the fore. He collected the ball off the ground and flicked it out the back door to Hume who ran through for the bonus point effort.

Five minutes and another Zebre yellow card later, Ulster’s forwards carried hard and kept it tight. Back rower Timoney was the man to show real strength to get over for the fifth try.

The 19-year-old Doak, who had been pulling the strings all evening, slotted over the conversion to move the deficit for the Italians out to 27 points.

Zebre tried to respond and created a scorable opportunity, but good Ulster defensive pressure caused a knock-on a few metres out, scuppering their only real chance of the closing 40 minutes.

Dan McFarland’s charges saw out the game with a flourish, Sean Reidy sending Timoney on a barnstorming run and a change of direction to run in untouched for his second try, converted by Michael Lowry.

Giving his reaction afterwards, head coach McFarland said: “I’m really pleased with the result. That was a really tough first half for us to weather. We wanted our set piece to get on top of them in that first half but they held us really well.

“At the start of the second half, our set piece in that third quarter got on top of them and that really changed the game. To come away with six tries and not let in a try was a big achievement.

“These first two games have been a really good opportunity to get a lot of guys playing that are not always frontliners.

“We’ve got through two games with maximum points with a lot of young guys getting really good experience.

“We’ll go into next week against Treviso with confidence but with our eyes wide open to the challenge that they pose because we saw that today in their game against Edinburgh.”