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Ulternative Alster Fan Club
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Match Report |
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The Ravens feasted on Bedford A new rugby competition got underway this week-end though you would hardly know it from the lack of publicity that surrounded it. Twelve teams from the English National Division 1 were joined by six Welsh Premiership clubs, three Scottish teams and the A teams from Ulster, Munster and Leinster. Scheduled to take place during the Autumn internationals and the 6 nations this was billed as an opportunity for the youngsters breaking through to the provincial teams to stake their claims while the big boys were off with the international teams. Unlike the inter-provincial A games these games are to be played on Friday nights at Ravenhill and should provide an opportunity for the Ravenhill faithful to get a fix of Ulster Rugby during the dead periods of the Magners league And Heineken Cup.. Arriving at Ravenhill on Friday it was obvious that somebody had god something badly wrong. The lights were on OK but there was nobody home. OK well not exactly nobody, but the place was quiet. There were a goodly smattering of travelling Bedford supporters and there were a lot of familiar faces of message-boarders, but there wasn’t a crowd. Still I put that all behind me as the kick-off time approached. Ulster had the honour of kicking off towards the beer-tent end immediately their superior skills showed. The first score came when live-wire scrum-half Paul Marshall pushed a grubber kick through, aoof the back of a scrum, for Tommy Seymour to gather and touch down in the corner. Niall O’Connor at pivot for the first time in an age showed that he wasn’t going to just disappear quietly just because iHumph has made the number 10 shirt his own and made the difficult touch-line conversion for a seven point lead. Niall has obviously been practicing as he showed some lovely skills as the game developed with probing kicks that pushed Bedford back into their 22 time and time again. Marshall was at the centre of all that was good in the first 20 minutes though with another jinking break setting up Declan Fitzpatrick for an easily converted second try. The Blues finally made an excursion into Ulster territory with a decent break and were rewarded with a penalty about 30 metres out in front of the posts. Bizarrely they opted to kick to touch and stout Ulster defending kept them out from the resulting line-out eventually turning the ball over and clearing their lines. Thankfully for Bedford it wasn’t long before the Ravens infringed again and they were soon awarded another penalty. This time they made the wise decision to kick for the posts and got on the score board with a deserved three points. Ulster weren’t long in hitting back though with a well worked backs move that saw Chris Cochrane go over in the left corner. O’Connor missed the difficult conversion but Ulster were still not done with the first half and another forwards drive resulted in a fine try by Andy Kyriacou which O’Connor converted. With the Bonus point secured Ulster continued to dominate possession and territory with the Blues finally conceding another penalty as the clock ran out for the first half. O’Connor kicked the three points and The teams went in for the break at 29-3. I don’t know what the Bedford coach said to the team at half time but when they came out for the second half there was more determination and organisation in defence than before. There was a bit more fractiousness too as they seemed determined to get under the skin of the Ravens which they succeeded in doing, but although they managed to put more pressure on the Ulster men they were unable to make any impression on the defence and the game fizzled to a disappointing conclusion with no further scores. A good performance form the Ravens where the pack really made the game in the first half allowing a mixture of backs and forwards tries to secure the game for the Ravens. A job well done in the first half, but a bit of an anticlimax in the second. O’Connor had a great game with the boot and Marshall was at the centre of all that was good despite some wayward passes. The team should be happy not to have conceded any tries and we are well set up for the competition with a maximum 5 points secured from the first game. I think that the new CEO needs to assess the potential for this competition and he should be seriously unhappy with the attendance and the failure to promote what could be an exciting competition for the younger lads breaking through. Surely this sort of game should have the same or better attendance than the pre-season friendlies where similar opposition come to play very similar Ulster teams. Ulster Ravens
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