A win is a win. But who can honestly say we deserve anything better.

Tonight a cold, wet, Ravenhill, blasted by rain, hail and sleet hosted a bottom of the table clash between arguably the worst two teams in the Magners League. At stake was qualification for the Heineken cup 2008/9 although on the performance tonight neither team looks likely to threaten for cup glory next year.

The expectant crowd had to endure a deluge of freezing cold rain and hail as the teams tried in vain to warm up in the count-down to kick-off. This would definitely not be a night for fast flowing running rugby. The ball looked set to be a slippery as a bucket of eels and it was not a false expectation.

In the opening minutes it was Ulster who started stronger and early on Andrew Trimble threatened to open up the Connacht defence down the left wing but before long Ulster’s initial exuberance as tamed by a dogged Connacht pack who were competing hard at ruck and maul, slowing down the ball, aggressively tying in defenders and threatening to turn the ball over. With the referee unwilling to assert himself Stephen Ferris decided to take the law into his own hands diving over the top of a ruck as if he were superman to challenge the Connacht forwards. It was a recklessly stupid move born out of frustration and drew the inevitable Yellow card from the ref’s pocket.

With Ulster down to 14 it was Connacht who opened the scoring on 15 minutes with a penalty to move 0-3 ahead. Connacht themselves were soon down to 14 men too when Prop Robbie Morris was carded for use of the knee in a ruck, but Ulster were unable to capitalise and played out the sin-bin periods without any further scores. Ith the clock running down on the first half Niall O’Connor levelled the scores with a penalty attempt but it had been a turgid first half peppered with missed kicks at goal from both teams and with few genuine passages of continuity none of which really threatened to break down the opposition defence.

By Contrast the Mini-Rugby at half-time between Ballyclare and Ballynahinch gave the crowd what they had come for - a real spectacle of fluid end-to-end running rugby with both teams tackling, off-loading intercepting and challenging in all areas of the field. I can’t tell you who won the encounter but I can tell you that it was much more entertaining that what we witnessed in the first forty minutes.

When the second half started Dunne continued his ‘mare of a game by squandering two further penalty attempts before being pulled off and replaced by Troy Nathan . Connacht managed a concerted attack through Duffy combining with O’Connor but Ulster’s defence held firm and that was surely the turning point of the game. O’Connor was pulled ashore suffering the after effects of an earlier injury and Paddy Wallace moved to 10 with Dewey coning on at 12.

As Ulster pressed on the Connacht line two charge-downs within moments of each-other rewarded Ulster with a 5m attacking scrum. Ulster made heavy work of picking and driving with possibly the slowest ball in the world coming from the base of the rucks but eventually they drove over the line and after consulting the TMO the ref surprised everyone by awarding a try to Tom Court which was easily converted by Paddy to give Ulster a reasonable lead at last.

As Matt Williams continued to ring the changes Ulster finally took control of the game. With Neil Best coming on for Dawson and Bryan Young coming on for Fitzy the fresh legs began to tell. Another Penalty opportunity converted by Paddy put clear daylight between the teams at last, but before long another Connacht penalty brought the game back to a 7 pointer 13-6.

The scoring was not quite over yet though another forward effort from Ulster resulted in a second try, this time for Matt McCullough, to re-establish a commanding lead hwhich they held to the final whistle.

On reflection after two losses on the road we really needed a win and by that token this was just the ticket. But we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that this was at home against the bottom team in the league, and was far from pretty or convincing.

The good points: Well I thought that O’Connor continued to develop well though there were some schoolboy errors notably kicking a restart straight out, and he could do with improving his awareness of where the opposition are when he attempts to pin them back. Too often his deep kicks landed too close to or in the arms of a defending player, yet he continues to be a good prospect and deserves his starting place. Tommy and Trimby were their old selves and Bryn was, as ever the safest player under the high ball. Tackliung was much better than ini the last two games.

The bad: Hugo. I am really at a loss to know what has happened to the Boss. He is getting slower and slower in getting the ball away from rucks and mauls and he box-kicks far too often. I used to blame this on Camp Cooder. Now I’m not sure what the reason can be. But it has to change or he has to be permanently replaced by Small Paul.

Ulster coach Matt Williams:

"We were nervous at the beginning and we really wanted to run the ball, so it took us a while to adjust to the wet conditions after the most incredible storm.

"There was a bad penalty count aginst us but when we settled down and started the second half positively, we were ok.

"Connacht can be proud of their courage and commitment but we were just that little bit bigger and had a little more pace, so we got away with it in the end.

Ulster: B Cunningham; T Bowe, A Trimble, P Wallace, M Bartholomeusz; N O'Connor, I Boss; J Fitzpatrick, R Best (capt), T Court, J Harrison, C Del Fava, M McCullough, K Dawson, S Ferris.
Replacements: N Brady, B Young, R Caldwell, N Best, P Marshall, R Dewey, M McCrea.

Connacht: G Duffy; M Mostyn, M Deane, K Matthews, D Riordan; A Dunne, C McPhillips; B Wilkinson, A Flavin, R Morris; D Gannon, A Farley (capt); J Muldoon, J O'Connor, C Rigney.
Replacements: J Fogarty, R Loughney, A Browne, L Casserly, R Shaw, T Nathan, D Yapp.