Leinster romp to ninth win in 10 by swatting Dragons aside
LEINSTER secured their ninth win from 10 Guinness PRO14 Conference B games this season by hammering the Dragons 59-10 on Saturday night.
Wing Dave Kearney and centre Jimmy O’Brien both grabbed two of their side’s nine tries, with the others coming via flanker Scott Penny, captain and lock Scott Fardy, number eight Caerlan Doris, full back Hugo Keenan and replacement hooker Bryan Byrne.
Fly-half Ross Byrne kicked five conversions and replacement Ciaran Frawley added two more against the hosts, who got a solitary second half try from scrumhalf Rhodri Williams, with flyhalf Jason Tovey converting and kicking a penalty.
Tom Farrell and Gavin Thornbury scored tries as Connacht secured a third successive Guinness PRO14 victory with a 2117 win over Cheetahs. Malcolm Jaer, Joseph Dweba and Shaun Venter crossed for the South African side, but they slipped to a seventh defeat in 10 games.
Farrell beat Jaer to go in for the game’s first try after just six minutes and Jack Carty added the extras. Carty added a penalty before Thornbury put the finishing touches on to a rolling maul to give Connacht a 15-0 advantage.
Cheetahs bounced back with two tries in the space of five minutes from Jaer and Dweba. David Horwitz kicked two penalties to extend the Connacht lead before Venter went in and Tian Schoeman converted for the hosts.
Munster head coach Johann van Graan (above) says the southern province have a more lethal edge with their internationals back in a potent backline.
Munster secured a 44-14 victory over Edinburgh at Irish Independent Park on Friday, and all eight tries came from the backs in a scintillating performance.
They are at home to Castres in the first of their back-to-back Champions Cup games next Sunday and this was the ideal preparation. Andrew Conway has emerged as a potential injury worry but he scored two tries to make it five in six days. Fellow returning Ireland winger Keith Earls notched a hat-trick while centre Chris Farrell scored twice.
“It was pretty nice for our outside backs to score that many tries and I thought system-wise it shows that there’s growth in our team,” said van Graan.
“The fact all those internationals came back, the academy guys came in and the regulars could glue back in with literally one training session, it shows that system-wise we are aligned.” Ulster: M Lowry, H Speight, J Hume, S McCloksey, L Ludik; B Burns, J Cooney; A Warwick, R Herring, M Moore; A O’Connor (capt), K Treadwell; S Reidy, J Murphy, M Coetzee.
Replacements: R Best (for Herring, 50), E O’Sulivan (for Warwick, 43), R Kane (for Moore, 45), I Nagle (for O’Connor, 35), N Timoney (for J Murphy, 71), D Shanahan (not used), J McPhillips (for Burns, 35), J Stockdale (for Lowry, 42).
Cardiff Blues: M Morgan, B Scully, H Millard, R Lee-Lo, J Harries; J Evans, L Williams (capt), R Gill, K Dacey, S Andrews; S Davies, J Turnbull; S Manoa, O Robinson, N Williams.
Replacements: L Belcher (for Dacey, 62), R Carre (for Gill, 50), D Lewis (for Andrews, 50), G Earle (for Manoa, 54), J Down (for N Williams, 70), T Williams (for L Williams, 54), S Shingler (for Millard, 64), G Smith. Referee: S Berry
Man of the Match:
John Cooney
AFTER watching Ulster’s 16-12 win over Cardiff Blues on Saturday afternoon, the mood of the two head coaches could hardly have been in starker contrast.
It had not been a game that ever really came to life — Cardiff winning the try count two to one but Ulster winning the game despite at one stage going more than 40 minutes without troubling the scoreboard — but there was plenty of fight in Cardiff ’s John Mulvihill’s post-match address, the Australian railing against the standard of PRO14 officiating.
The Australian — in his first year in the Welsh capital after succeeding Danny Wilson — took exception to three separate incidents in the second half of the home side’s victory.
Two focused on Stuart McCloskey, the Ulster centre who was back in the side after representing Ireland against the USA a week prior and set up Ulster’s only score of the contest in the first half.
It was his involvements after the turn, though, that angered Mulvihill.
A spate of what was described as “handbags” by Ulster’s Sean SUCH is the way. While Malone lost, at Banbridge, they stayed top while though Ballymena put Old Belvedere to the sword they are still rooted to the bottom.
Mind you, there is hope for the Braidmen after they at least put the brakes on a three-match losing streak to taste victory for only the second time after seven games in this campaign in defeating Belvo 28-14 at Eaton Park.
How they needed this one as a home game with fellow strugglers Belvo had that must-win look all over it.
Indeed, the Braidmen also collected a bonus point win and are now just three behind Belvo and Buccaneers with the latter rising a place after seeing off City of Armagh. Reidy broke out in the 50th minute of the game with McCloskey and Cardiff’s scrum-half Lloyd Williams at the centre. McCloskey dipped his head but certainly didn’t appear to make any contact or indeed even attempt to do so. Mulvihill, though, believed it should have been the end of McCloskey’s afternoon.
South African referee Stuart Berry took no action, however, and Mulvihill’s mood was not helped when the same player seemed to impede a Cardiff player in the moments after Eric O’Sullivan made a try-saving tackle. The referee adjudged it had been a knock-on by the attacking side, rendering subsequent events, and McCloskey’s tug of a blue jersey, moot.
To complete the trilogy, Cardiff believed a late turnover by Rory Best underneath the Ulster posts should have been negated by the presence of Nick Timoney lying in the ruck.
“The way the game was officiated towards the end wasn’t right,” blasted Mulvihill. “If you’ve got a TMO and a referee and two officials then surely some of those breakdown decisions have to be better. Clearly towards the end of the game we clawed our way back into it — they’re a good team, Ulster, that’s why we were behind at the end — but we clawed our way back into it.
“Under the goalposts at the end there, three players off their feet, one in particular off his feet, hands not even on the ball, his hands were at the back of the ruck but the referee called holding on. (The ref ) was in the wrong position, he didn’t see it, he didn’t even go to the TMO.
“You’ve got decisions where we get a yellow card for someone cleaning someone out — it wasn’t a shoulder charge, it was a cleanout and he wrapped his arms — but their 12 was allowed to come into that little push and shove, grab our nine and initiate with