Questions remain despite Ulster’s perfect numbers
Victory in Edinburgh makes it eight on the spin but have Mcfarland’s men been tested for Toulouse tussle?
ULSTER will enter their mini-break top of conference A and still boasting their best start to a season since 2012.
Last night’s bonus-point win over Edinburgh in Murrayfield was their eighth victory in a row and saw them leapfrog champions Leinster thanks to Leo Cullen’s side having their own game this weekend postponed after an instance of Covid-19 in the Scarlets camp.
With an 11-day turnaround before facing Toulouse in the opening round of their Champions Cup campaign next Friday, the only questions over the form of Dan Mcfarland’s side are regarding whether the opposition have shown enough in defeat to stretch the northern province ahead of such a marked step up in class.
While their six-strong Ireland contingent will have returned by the time of the visit from the four-time European champions to Belfast on December 11, Ulster are all too aware of Toulouse’s quality, having been thumped at the Stade Ernest Wallon in last season’s quarter-finals only a little over two months ago. The time in between has produced eight wins from eight, six try-bonuses and a points differential of plus 149 but, crucially, without ever really offering a genuine yardstick of whether the team are truly improved from that late September afternoon.
Against an Edinburgh side who did have a real purple patch after going down 19-0 to come back to 19-14, this was another game when Ulster’s biggest test was maintaining their focus through a decidedly sub-par third quarter.
They had monopolised possession for the first three minutes of the game, with Mike Lowry on the ball early and often, and Stewart Moore was to be the beneficiary of the quick start, the young centre scoring his third try in as many games after John Andrew and Jordi Murphy had worked the linebreak on the outside.
Edinburgh had more fight in them than the opening salvo suggested but their initial efforts were to be thwarted by the not inconsiderable breakdown presence of Marcell Coetzee, the 30-times capped Springbok twice forcing turnovers on the deck while the securing of a scrum penalty will have heartened Andy Warwick, too, on the occasion of his first start this season.
The hosts would come to rue those wasted openings when, as the second quarter neared, John Andrew bagged Ulster’s second.
Just as he had in the PRO14 semi-final on this same ground some three months ago, the hooker crossed the whitewash at the back of a dominant maul, on this occasion led by the charging Coetzee and Marty Moore.
Ulster trailed by 12 twice in that semi-final ultimately won by a late Ian Madigan penalty but, with their maul defence so flimsy, a reciprocal comeback from Edinburgh seemed unlikely. More unlikely still only three minutes later when, again set up off a maul inching forwards ominously, John Cooney squeezed through a gap for Ulster’s third.
While there was little sign it was coming, this marked the start of Edinburgh’s brief revival. A knock-on from Coetzee off the restart preceded a sustained period of pressure from Richard Cockerill’s much-changed outfit and, after discipline issues in the
win over Scarlets a week ago, Ulster again found themselves falling foul of the referee.
Consistently playing with advantage, the strong line picked by Jack Blain was rewarded with a score.
Then, when a dominant scrum was rewarded with a pressure-relieving penalty to thwart Ulster before the break, Edinburgh were finishing the first-half decidedly in the ascendency.
They’d carry the momentum into the second-half, too, getting their reward thanks to Blain’s second of the night and even appeared to have levelled things only to have a try chalked off for Jamie Farndale being ahead of the kicker.
The hour mark would see Ulster decisively regain control of things, though, thanks to yet another maul score, this time through Jordi Murphy, to give them a 12-point advantage and the bonus-point while also brining a yellow card for replacement Bill Mata.
Madigan would brilliantly create a second for Cooney before, fittingly, the maul returned to the fore to finish things off with Andrew completing his hat-trick with a pair of late scores.