Addison turns on the style as Ulster ease home

ULSTER got back to winning ways as they scored five tries in a 36-18 win over the Dragons at Kingspan Stadium on their return to Guinness PRO14 action.

Stuart McCloskey’s first try – he bagged a brace – secured the five points, while recent Ireland call-up Will Addison produced a sublime bit of skill to set David Shanahan up for a first-half try.

Johnny McPhillips opened the scoring with a penalty for the hosts, and that was quickly followed up with their opening try of the game when Henry Speight went over after McPhillips broke the line and timed the pass to perfection.

Jason Tovey got the visitors off the mark with a penalty before Addison’s stand-out moment, the centre beating one man on the outside, leaving Jordan Williams for dead with a beautiful sidestep and selling Tovey an outrageous dummy before putting Shanahan under the posts.

Flanker Huw Taylor struck back for the Dragons, crashing over from close range and finishing off a move that started with centre Jarryd Sage breaking the line far too easily.

Tovey then added a second penalty, but Ulster went in at the break happier when Iain Henderson’s thundering run into the 22 gave them field position and full-back Michael Lowry’s inside step saw him ghost over for his maiden try in an Ulster jersey.

The bonus point was secured soon after the restart as McCloskey grabbed his first of the game, the centre having the easy task of waltzing over the line following Speight’s bulldozing run.

But after seeing Lowry helped off with a nasty-looking injury, and then surviving a TMO review for a potential Dragons try, the visitors struck again when Sage took a first-phase ball over the line, and Addison along with him as he attempted to make the tackle.

The Dragons threatened to make an interesting finish of it, however they couldn’t find that killer moment to bring it back to a one-score game, leaving Ulster to secure the result when lock Kieran Treadwell spun out of a tackle and released McCloskey over the line for the score that put the result beyond doubt.

ULSTER – M Lowry (Nelson, 57); R Baloucoune, W Addison, S McCloskey, H Speight; J McPhillips, D Shanahan (Stewart, 63); E O’Sullivan (Warwick, 50), R Best (capt) (Herring, 50), M Moore (O’Toole, 57); I Henderson (O’Connor, 60), K Treadwell; S Reidy, J Murphy, M Coetzee (Jones, 72).

DRAGONS – J Williams; D Howells (Kirchner, 46), A Warren, J Sage (Dixon, 70), W Talbot-Davies; J Tovey, R Williams (Knoyle, 62); B Harris (Bevington, 51), R Hibbard (capt), L Fairbrother (Jarvis, 51); M Screech, L Evans (Davis, 56); H Taylor (Basham, 52), N Cudd, H Keddie.

REF – Marius Mitrea (FIR).