Leinster v Ulster March 2009-04-05

There’s something about Leinster. No matter how well Ulster have been playing our Mexican cousins seem to cause us to behave like rabbits caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. In the past four of five years the best Ulster have managed against Leinster, home or away, was to draw (twice). The Ladyboys just seem to have the measure of us.

With many of the starting players from the successful Six Nations Campaign kept back by the IRFU Ulster must surely have been hoping that this was a n opportunity to gain some revenge on an under-strength Leinster team in their own back yard. Ulster were maybe a little light in the back row with Ferris held back and Diack only returning to the bench from injury, but apart from that they had a near full strength team. Leinster were allowed to play D’Arcy as he had had little match time in the previous weeks but BOD, Kearney and Heaslip were serious absentees from the Ladyboys’ starting line up. In the first half Ulster made much of the running finding holes in the Leinster first-up defence and making some decent line-breaks only to fail to convert the opportunity to points through simple handling errors or lack of a supporting player in the right place to keep the move going. But as happens all to often if was Leinster who were to get the first opportunity to put points on the board when Ulster were penalised for hands in the ruck. Contemponi just pushed the kick wide of the posts though and the game remained scoreless.

A few minutes later, with Ulster struggling to convert field position into points, iHumph took a speculative drop at goal to try to break the deadlock. But he failed to connect and pushed it well wide. Ulster continued to press forward though and the forwards combined well again to move back into an attacking position in the Leinster half. This time it was Shane Jennings to be penalised for handling on the ground and iHumph had a 45m chance to nose Ulster ahead, but crucially he was off-target again and the opportunity was lost.

Contemponi finally got the score board moving on 20 minutes when he knocked over a penalty after Ulster were pinged for not releasing in front of the posts. But Ulster were still hungry for points and Trimble was the next to feature with a sublime break through the porous Leinster defence left him with just Shane Horgan to beat for a certain score. Unfortunately Andy chose to try to chip shaggy rather than back himself to beat his man with mall in hand. His chip kick failed even to rise above Horgan’s chest and was easily intercepted to bring a promising move to a premature end.

Next it was Horgan’s turn to break through the Ulster defence and combine with Jackman to threaten the Ulster line but he was stopped just short of the line. One more penalty apiece finished out the half both successfully converted to points leaving Ulster still well in the game 6-3 down.

With the start of the second half both teams came out fired-up and ready to show intent. Ulster were the first with an opportunity with an attacking scrum 15 metres out but the chance was squandered by a knock-on and Leinster were let off the hook. However at this stage they were still competing with good tactical kicking from iHumph keeping Ulster returning to Leinster’s half. But the moment that turned the game came when Rocky Elsom engaged a new gear and broke through three Ulster Tackles only to send the final pass forward to Jackman. Although this move broke down the marker had been laid and from then on Leinster were a different team. A line break from D’Arcy set Fergus McFadden on his way to score in the corner. Contemponi managed the conversion and Leinster had daylight between themselves and Ulster.

Still not down and out Ulster forced Leinster into touch from the restart for a decent attacking line-out on the Leinster 22 but they squandered possession with a silly jersey pull in the line-out and Leinster clear form the subsequent penalty.

With their tails up Leinster become more and more ambitious. A chip through from sexton led to an Ulster line-out on their 22 but Leinster stole the throw to press forward and send Plug Cullen through iHumph and over the line to extend their lead. This time there was no conversion.

Ulster and Leinster both started to throw on their benches Diack making a welcome return for Ulster. With Whitten coming on for iHumph and Wallace moving to 10 it seemed like a message was being sent to Humphreys for his poor tackling even though his creativity and tactical kicking had been good.

Ulster started about the job of hauling the game back and the chance came when White threw a punch at Caldwell and was penalised for his trouble. Paddy kicked for the corner but Ulster lost the line-out again and Leinster clear.

Ulster really needed to score next to stay in the game and when Leinster were penalised for going off their feet at a ruck Clint Schifcofske stepped up and slotted the penalty to bring the score back to 18-6. There was still a long way back but Ulster had not yet given up. However, when Jennings turned over ball and set Rock Elsom on his way for Leinster’s third try the writing was on the wall. But there was to be one final bitter twist. With the clock already over the 80 minutes the ref seemed to have lost all contact with the time keepers and with no help from the “assistant Referees” allowed play to continue for one last Leinster attack. To add insult to injury Leinster replacement Simon Keogh took advantage of the refs confuaion with a bonus point try.

A very disappointing day for Ulster. Our Line-out was disrupted all day, our play from first phase was generally good when we won the ball but our continuity and support play as we went through the phases became stale and predictable. Our scrum creaked on occasion and we failed to turn over ball at ruck-time where on other occasions we would have had a field day.

We may take crumbs of comfort from Inter-pro tables that show us at the head of the Irish provinces but we aren’t winning where it counts in the Magners League table. We need to start winning some/any games against Leinster and we need to start winning away in Wales.

Leinster: G Dempsey, S Horgan, F McFadden, G D'Arcy, I Nacewa, F Contepomi, C Whitaker; C Healy, B Jackman, S Wright; L Cullen, M O'Kelly; C Jowitt, S Jennings R Elsom.

Replacements :J Fogarty, CJ van der Linde, T Hogan, S O'Brien, D Toner, S Keogh, J Sexton .

Ulster: C Schifcofske;A Trimble, D Cave, P Wallace, S Danielli, I Humphreys, I Boss; T Court, R Best, B Botha; E O'Donoghue, R Caldwell, M McCullough, D Pollock, C Henry.

Replacements: N Brady, B Young, C Del Fava, R Diack, C Willis, I Whitten T Nagusa.

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