It was a rather meagre crew that assembled in the rain on Montgomery road to board the erstwhile “Big Yella Bus” to Galway, but though we were small in number we were big on enthusiasm and raring to go. Thankfully when we made it to Galway we found that a reasonable number of the Ulster Faithful had also made the journey under their own steam and the Ravenhill regulars were well represented amongst the 1400 strong crowd at the Sportsground.
For the last two years the Connacht away fixture had been played in the dark around the end of October so it made a real change to arrive at the ground on a bright spring evening in full daylight.
Matt Williams had pulled his usual jiggery-pokery with the team sheets and the team that took the pitch bore some significant changes from the one declared earlier much to the annoyance of Gusher on the radio by all accounts. Isaac Boss was moved to full back and Paul Marshall started at Scrum-half. Schifkofske moved from full-back to the Wing instead of Jim Nagusa who dropped to the bench. Ian Humphreys started at Out-half instead of Niall O’Connor. In the forwards Caldwell was dropped to the bench and replaced by Del Fava. I do wonder at what point the league is going to have a word with Williams about this tactic. It seems designed to upset the preparations of the other which I suppose is understandable but it shows little respect to those who do follow the protocol and declare their actual teams in advance and of course for those of us who like to collect the match programmes as a factual record of the match it makes them pretty useless.
Having already beaten Munster and Leinster at the Sportsground this season Connacht were hopeful of achieving a full set of inter-pro scalps so they weren’t to be taken lightly. Anyone thinking that Connacht’s last place in the Magners league table meant that Ulster should be romping away with a bonus point win was living in cloud-cuckoo-land.
Ulster played the first half with the wind and soon took advantage of Connacht’s indiscipline with Ian Humphreys landing a fine long range penalty to give Ulster an early lead. With their tails up and the wind at their backs Ulster dominated territory and possession in the early phases of the game. However the Connacht defence was holding firm and Ulster were finding it hard to make a dent in it until Paul Marshall dabbed a grubber kick through, turning the Connacht defence in the process, he followed up well and Ulster regathered possession to send Danielli scampering over the line for a try in the far corner. Humphreys was unable to convert but an 8 point lead after fifteen minutes was looking pretty good.. Humphreys made amends a few minutes later with a second successful kick and Ulster appeared to be in the driving seat. But as they continued to pressure the Connacht defence in their own half things started to unravel a little. First Humphreys missed a kickable penalty then a turn-over in the Connacht 22 allowed Frank Murphy to release Fionn Cass for a breakaway score against the run of play. Keatley hit the post with his conversion attempt but Connacht were up and running.
Ulster weren’t put off their stroke though and they continued to pressure Connacht in their own half. However there was little to show for their efforts as they failed to turn Connacht’s infringements into points on the board. First failing from a penalty kicked to the corner and compounding it with a missed Penalty attempt from Humphreys.
A half time lead of 11-5 seemed to be too little to defend and Ulster had to look forward to a long, hard second half playing into the wind. Our worst fears were confirmed ten minutes into the half. Troy Nathan burst through stretching the Ulster defence to breaking point to create a chance for Andrew Browne who slipped over unopposed to bring Connacht within a point of Ulster. Keatley converted to put the westerners’ noses in front but even then the Ulster faithful were not quietened.
Matt Williams chose this as the moment to swap Humphreys and Del Fava for O’Connor and Caldwell. With Ulster now on the back-foot playing into the wind it was going to be a gruelling 30 minutes of defending with few opportunities to score. Thankfully an opportunity presented itself sooner rather than later and with Humphreys off the field it was up to Schifkofske to do the honours. Shifty duly obliged and Ulster were back in front, just.
For the remaining 25 minutes the initiative was almost all with Connacht as they used the wind advantage to push Ulster back into their own half, but for all that they forced Ulster into conceding Penalties the usually accurate Keatley was unable to take the points hitting the posts for the second time in the game with one attempt and pulling two others wide.
As the match ran to a close Connacht nearly made the decisive break and looked almost certain to score but the Connacht player was brought down short of the line. I couldn’t see it from my vantage point but the crowd were calling for a penalty for a trip but thankfully the ref didn’t buy it and Ulster survived. Ian Keatley had one last shot at a penalty to bring off a probably deserved win for the Westerners but his radar was off-calibration and he missed again to hand Ulster a get out of Jail free card.
The swirling wind at the Sportsground made kicking difficult, as the evidence of Ian Keatley confirms so our kicking performance was certainly much improved. The lineout functioned well for most of the game and the scrum held up well. There was still a lack of penetration in attack though and we desperately need to find that spark which can unlock defences and lay the tryline open for onslaught.
With one more match left against Llanelli you’d have to say this has been a real mixed bag of a season where we have come away once or twice with wins we simply did not deserve, lost a few matches by the odd point or two which we genuinely deserved to win and in the middle of it all achieved an Impressive home and away double over Munster.
Most of the squad were in Galway for their end-of-term party after the game and the travelling supporters had a chance to chat with Justin Fitzpatrick, Kieran Dawson, Filo Paulo, and many more as well as ex-ulster favourite Kieran Campbell who were all milling around. As we waited to get back aboard the bus we took the opportunity to cross over the ground to the players changing rooms where Mrs JB went about terrorising the players with her enthusiastic greetings and irrepressible personality. In all my time watching Stephen Ferris I have never seen any opposing player causing the look of sheer naked terror in his eyes that Mrs JB produced in a matter of seconds.
I can’t sign off without expressing my thanks to Johnny the driver of the Little Silver Bus for making the whole trip possible. I’d also like to thank the members of the Independent Connacht Supporters club who welcomed us in their unofficial headquarters in O’Connell’s bar and bought us drinks and shared the experience with us. Connacht Abu!
Ulster: I Boss; C Schifcofske, D Cave, I Whitten, S Danielli, I Humphreys, P Marshall; BJ Botha, R Best (c), T Court; E O'Donoghue, C del Fava; S Ferris, C Henry, R Diack.
Replacements: R Dewey for Cave (72), N O'Connor for Humphreys (51), B Young for Court (64), N Brady for Best (80), R Caldwell for Del Fava (51), Nagusa for Whitten (64).
Not used: M McCullough.
Connacht: T Nathan; F Carr, G Duffy, K Matthews, L Bibo; I Keatley, F Murphy; B Wilkinson, S Cronin, R Loughney; M Swift, A Farley; A Browne, R Ofisa, J Muldoon (c).
Replacements: D Gannon for Swift (75), C Rigney for Browne (71).
Not Used: Flavin, McGovern, O'Loughlin, Dunne, Deane.
Referee: A Lewis (Irish RFU)
